


Digimon United

by Alphamon_Ouryuken



Category: Digimon, Digimon - All Media Types, Digimon Adventure, Digimon Adventure Zero Two | Digimon Adventure 02, Digimon Tamers
Genre: Crossover, Crossovers & Fandom Fusions, F/M, Multiple Crossovers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-18
Updated: 2020-10-23
Packaged: 2021-03-09 01:00:32
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 22,062
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27076132
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Alphamon_Ouryuken/pseuds/Alphamon_Ouryuken
Summary: When Digimon start appearing in Shinjuku, the Digidestined are forced to take a break from fighting the Digimon Emperor to investigate. However they end up meeting a new generation of Digidestined known as; The Tamers. But unknown to them, there are several dark forces at work not only in the Digi-World...but real world as well...
Kudos: 9





	1. Foes from the Other Side (Part 1)

Between the material world and the Digital World, there exists a limbo area caught in the interim, a field of pure, unfiltered data serving as an interdimensional border. Years ago, it was hardly used at all until a calamity created by the vampiric Myotismon opened the floodgates. Today, the new generation of DigiDestined drift back and forth between their native world and their partners' at will, blasting through the boundary in an instant via DigiGates. Few others cross the field by breaching their world's borders, and fewer still enter this space as an intended destination.

A figure drifted alone through this realm of data particles and halo fields, unlit partly due to the distance from and intangibility of any light sources in his surroundings, and partly due to the failing composition of his form. This was, in recent times, his getaway from the trials of his own existence, a place for him to clear his head and look back upon events that recently transpired. The time between those events and now did little to push them out of mind; if anything, he increasingly spent it dwelling on them.

He still cried over it sometimes. Even now, remembering the face of his truest companion, the sorrow and devastation he was in no small part responsible for, he felt his eyes welling up. Of course his tear ducts were the _one_ thing that manifested properly and worked as intended. He could barely wipe it away with his hand, flickering as it was between corporeal states. He clenched it into a fist, a fully formed tear trailing down his cheek as his lingering took him back to the day he met her.

A familiar feminine voice called out to him, startling out of his nostalgia. "Dwelling on the past again, are we?"

The drifter looked behind him to the one who addressed him. The new figure bore the appearance of a human girl, dressed in the black garb of a nun save the cat-styled klobuk on her head. Her twin T-shaped pistols were still in hand, but in the presence of a friendly face, she smiled, lowered her guard, and allowed their data to disperse.

"Noir," he stated flatly. "How did you find me?"

"Ooh, that's a tough one..." Noir chided, mockingly placing a finger on her chin in a feigned gesture of contemplation. The gesture quickly shifted as her hands met her hips, and she leaned in towards him to meet his eyes. "Maybe because this is where you were the _last_ five times you did this?"

The specter chuckled, a weary and hollow sound that betrayed his sorrow. "Yes... I suppose I have come here a lot, to reminisce. I just..." He looked back down at his hand, watching it solidify for the span of a few seconds before regaining its transparency. "I just miss her."

Noir's own expression fell at that, her teasing smile inverting as her posture slackened. "I'm sorry we couldn't do more. My master's power has its limits, and it was nearly beyond them to patch your data back together, especially considering you were standing up to someone like Myot—"

She caught herself mid-sentence, clasping her hands over her mouth, but the syllables she let slip still left their impact. Her friend's eyes seemed to sink that much deeper, the clear and unpleasant pain of an old wound being freshly reopened. Not that he wasn't thinking back to it anyway, but having it brought up by another clearly didn't help matters.

"I'm so sorry!" she blurted out. "I wasn't... I didn't mean to—"

"Don't," he replied, stopping the apology before she prattled on any longer. "What's past is past; though I look back on it too often nowadays, I'm beyond offense regarding it. I'm eternally grateful to you, and to your master, for what you _could_ do to bring me back. Perhaps soon I'll even be able to—"

"Sistermon!"

Noir and her friend both looked beside them, where another Digimon had manifested in the cyberspace barrier. The new figure was quadrupedal, draconic, and pristinely white, wearing a crimson cloak with goggles attached to the drawn-back hood. He panted softly, eyes wide with urgency as they darted between the assembled group.

"Huckmon!" Noir exclaimed. "What happened? Is something wrong?"

"We've got breachers!" Huckmon spat out, breathlessly. "Two Digimon have broken through the barrier and escaped the Digital World!" He quickly shot an exasperated glance to the spectral silhouette beside Noir. "And what are you doing here _again!?_ I spent all night trying to find you!"

"Focus!" Noir shouted, kneeling to Huckmon's eye level and forcibly shifting his head to face her. "You skipped some _pretty_ crucial information. What makes these Digimon so different from any other breachers that you're worked up about it? And more importantly, _where's my sister?"_

Huckmon tore his head away from her grasp indignantly, but carried on nonetheless. "Boss said the energy readings off one of them were out of whack, and Blanc sent me to fetch you guys while she went to investigate. We're gonna need to go too."

Noir stood up and smirked, summoning her firearms again. "I like the sound of that. Anthony's been itching for a proper engagement." She twirled them for emphasis before firming her grip on the handles, holding them up in a cross position.

Huckmon met the smirk with one of his own, dropping the cowl over his head and the goggles over his eyes. "Let's do this!"

Without any other acknowledgement or fanfare, Noir and Huckmon vanished from the limbo plane, leaving the fallen figure alone once more. He let out a brief sigh as the word Noir had tried to say resonated in his mind. _Myotismon..._ there was still a bitterness associated with that name, and likely always would be. His grip tightened around the staff in his other hand as he chewed on the name a moment longer, still gazing out into the abyss.

Eventually, the specter waved his staff and disappeared as well, leaving the boundary between worlds virtually barren once more.

* * *

In the material world, three figures sat in a spherical room surrounded entirely by a deep blue display. They served the organization Hypnos, monitoring the globe and tracking anomalies that crossed from the Digital World into theirs. Two women, a blonde and a brunette, sat back-to-back in elevated seats in the center of the observatory, typing away at their consoles as their supervisor monitored things from below. Their knowledge of the world beyond was limited, and their understanding moreso, but what they could do efficiently and unfailingly was monitor these anomalies.

An alert tore all three sets of eyes away from their stations and towards a mass of red dots that manifested on the wall. Their consoles sprang to life in response as well, energy readouts dancing on their personal screens as the five points moved across the larger display and slowly converged.

"Sir," the brunette called out, "we are reading five signatures converging on one spot, attempting bio-emergence around the Shinjuku area."

"The readings are immense," the blonde added. "Larger than anything previously observed. Our scales are insufficient to measure them."

Her boss pushed up his shades with one hand while fidgeting with his lighter in the other, smirking up at the converging dots. "Looks like a whole mess of Wild Ones. Send out a tracer and keep tabs on them."

"Affirmative," came the call above, and the women returned to typing away at their stations. Their leader watched with satisfaction, still opening and closing his lighter, as a yellow marker appeared on the screen and began advancing on the red cluster.

* * *

Elsewhere in the realm between realms, a young and terrified creature ran for his life. His prominent, frilly ears were shrunken back in panic, his stubby little legs carrying him as far and as quickly as they could. The massive yellow ape-man was still hot on his trail, taking a swing at his quarry with his club every time he got close. Suffice to say, nothing was going right today.

His foot came down awkwardly and slipped out from beneath him, and he collided with the surface beneath him face-first. The lumbering Apemon towered over the small white form as it turned to face him, his eyes affixed to the patterned red triangles atop the younger Digimon's forehead.

"Please, mister..." the little one begged, trying desperately to scramble away. "I didn't do anything wrong... I-I was just trying to play!"

The club slammed down right where the smaller creature was just laying, and Apemon snarled at him. "Oh, I wanna play too... and when I get a taste of your power, I can have as much fun as I—"

He was quickly silenced, and brought to his knees, by a blunt object colliding with his gut.

Apemon buckled immediately, as much in shock as in pain, and he briefly dropped his bone club to clutch his stomach with both arms. Through the pain, he could hear the light scuffles of his prey scrambling further back, and the loud thud of a staff smacking the ground right in front of him. When he looked up, he beheld a feminine humanoid form bearing a cross-styled trident lance, clothed in ivory nun robes and a pink rabbit-themed klobuk on her head. Her figure was very demure, especially put against a figure like Apemon's, but her silver eyes bore a harsh judgment.

Enraged, he tried to lunge at the interloper, but a cry of **"Protect Wave!"** and a harder slam to the floor from the butt end of her lance stopped him once again. A concussive blast emanated from her, blasting him back several yards and putting much more distance between himself and his prey.

As he picked himself back up off the ground, the newcomer shifted her stance, the prongs of her weapon pointed straight at him. "My name is Sistermon Blanc, and this Digimon is under my protection."

Apemon spat disdainfully, snarling at this so-called Sistermon as he wiped his mouth. "Meddling pest! You couldn't just leave well enough alone, could ya? You know what you got back there?"

Blanc looked back to the smaller Digimon she was putting herself in front of, gazing at her slack-jawed and wide-eyed as if he'd seen an angel. She did not, in fact, understand anything about the figure, beyond it being her duty from on high to protect him.

She quickly returned her gaze to Apemon, her lance not faltering. "I know that he is a child, being preyed upon by a bully, and to that end my Cross Barbée will stand between him and you. The strong that prey upon the weak betray a greater weakness within themselves, and it will be your downfall."

Apemon growled at that, his fur bristling and standing on end as his manic eyes fell upon the figure before him. "You call me weak!? I'll show you what strength _really_ looks like! **Metallic Fur!"**

His stance straightened and every muscle on his body flexed, sending his straightened fur strands firing from his body and straight at Blanc. He let out a primal roar as he fired, partly as a show of frustration and partly to regain some of his wounded pride. The little white Digimon watched the yellow needles fly towards them and heard the cry from his aggressor, and looked away in terror.

However, Blanc kept her composure and straightened out herself, spinning her lance in front of her as a barrier. The needles failed to penetrate her defenses, instead scattering from the deflection and losing their rigidity upon contact. By the time she finally set the staff down again, there was a neat pile of yellow fur in front of her that stopped an arm's length away from her.

After a deep breath, she pointed her lance at Apemon again. "You're out of warnings. Stand down, or I will be forced to fight back."

Apemon grinned wickedly at her in defiance and charged forward, momentarily surprising Blanc. He lunged not at her, but at his club; the twirling of her lance had sent it blowing closer to him. The fur on his body started barraging her again, this time prompting her to grab the smaller creature behind her and backflip out of the line of fire.

Once he figured he had her adequately occupied, he cried out **"Mega Bone Stick!"** and flung his weapon in her direction. Blanc vaguely noted the club as it careened past her, missing her by a mile and letting her set the little one down without much disturbance. However, she caught movement in the corner of her eye as it boomeranged back towards her... or more accurately, at the defenseless Digimon behind her.

 **"Divine Pierce!"** At Blanc's cry, Cross Barbée began to glow with a holy light. The smaller Digimon watched in awe as his protector prepared her assault, not even noticing the approaching club until she swung out to smack it away. In the same motion, she let the lance fly from her hand and directly at the charging Apemon. The center prong pierced through his shoulder, throwing him back once more with enough force to embed itself into the ground and leave him pinned.

Apemon grunted in pain from the holy weapon jutting out of his arm, and made several attempts to throw up his shoulder to dislodge himself, all to no avail. He tried to clutch it with his free hand, but Blanc approached him quickly and swept him away with her leg. Her demeanor had barely shifted throughout the entire altercation, but her eyes bore through him anew with divine fury as her foot pressed down onto the tender spot on his stomach she'd struck earlier.

"You _will_ be returning from whence you came," the holy warrior commanded, the Apemon beneath her too stunned and hurt to back-sass her. "This is my mercy. Accept it, and walk away."

Apemon nodded, much more eagerly than he ought to have. Screw his pride; he was happy to just get out of here with his _life._ There would be other opportunities to get an easy power buff later down the road, as long as he just counted this loss and went home. He saw Blanc's expression soften slightly, and thought to himself about all the ways he'd twist this story to make it sound less like he got absolutely curb-stomped by a nun.

His relief evaporated as a sudden gust blew through the area, and a towering shadow materialized out of nowhere to eclipse both himself and Blanc.

The Sistermon looked back at the form behind her, keeping Apemon pinned with her foot as she dislodged her lance. It was a hulking, humanoid creature with brown fur on red flesh, its broad shoulders adorned with massive spikes and bandaging wrapping its left wrist. Its floppy ears had a coat of green fur, and on its head was a partial skull fitted around its three horns. Its dark eyes looked almost vacant, like the creature's higher functions weren't fully functioning, but they revealed a manic rage that couldn't be sated.

Blanc tightened her grip around Cross Barbée. "What _are_ you?"

The intruder didn't answer. It just stood and slouched before her, panting and snarling through an unsettlingly wide smile, those beady red eyes fixed right on her. Then it brought its fist down right on top of her, and she barely had enough time to grab the smaller Digimon and roll out of the way before the blow struck the ground immediately in front of the now-freed Apemon.

The monkey-man bounded to his feet immediately, a wonderful new opportunity flashing before his eyes. Sure, this new brute that just teleported on top of them looked like he'd be too dangerous to tussle with, but clearly Blanc was primed to do all the tussling. That would leave her distracted, and the little brat would be borderline defenseless. How likely was the bigger brat to be capable of multitasking in a high-pressure situation?

The moment Blanc strafed to avoid the lumbering beast's swinging fist, Apemon leapt into action, his club held aloft and ready for some bludgeoning action. "You're wide open! **Mega Bone Stick!"**

Blanc didn't even change her expression as Apemon approached, simply using her momentum to pirouette and parry his blow. Her next rotation was used to bash the new/old aggressor over the head with her lance, dropping him almost as quickly as he'd gotten back up and not even loosening her grip on her rescue.

She looked back at the other apelike monster assailing her, who was slowly righting himself after his missed punch. He turned slowly towards her, toothy grin and manic gaze completely unaltered from his entry. There was a temptation to study that gaze, to see if those eyes betrayed anything more than animalistic bloodlust. There must have been a deeper hurt behind these blows; rare were the Digimon with _no_ sense of intelligence, and of those, ones with space-warping powers were absolutely unheard-of.

Blanc was reminded in an instant that her compassion was not quite relevant to the situation by a sudden shift in the creature's stance. His arm quickly outstretched, then _stretched out,_ and he growled as his fist flung out like a rubber band to strike at the holy Digimon. She leapt in time to miss the brunt of the blow, but the hit smacked her foot mid-air, throwing off her trajectory and sending her tumbling with the smaller figure cradled in her arms.

" _What is even happening right now!?"_ the little Digimon cried out, flailing in Blanc's arms in a futile escape to just escape this crazy place and these crazy people. Blanc just held him tighter as she stood up, staring this beast down and readying her next dodge so his limb extensions wouldn't catch her off-guard again. He let out a roar that almost sounded like an attempt to speak, lifted both arms, and—

**"Fif Slash!"**

Someone else descended from above, right on top of the brown bruiser, and swung out at him with the claws on his forelegs. He landed right on the beast's outstretched arms, let out another cry of **"Baby Flame!"** and spewed a burst of fire directly into his face. As the feral creature growled in pain and reached up to clutch at his burning face, the new figure flipped away and right to Blanc's side, revealing the familiar, friendly visage of Huckmon.

He pulled back his cowl and looked up at his friend, offering her a confident smirk. "This guy _can't_ be the source of the power surge, right?"

Blanc shook her head. "Not him; the one in my arms." She set the latter down, pointing her lance at the former. "But more importantly... where is my sis—"

**"Bless Fire!"**

Another assault rained down from the sky, this time a hail of holy bullets peppering both the immediate threat and the obstinately stubborn Apemon. Sistermon Noir spiraled down with her guns held straight out, raining fire down from the sky and giving Blanc and Huckmon enough time to prepare for the inevitable next strike.

Before Noir touched ground, however, the feral monster vanished before her eyes. She was caught off-guard, though her landing still stuck, and she leapt back to rejoin her little sister. "Glory hog."

Blanc scoffed. "You were busy looking for our friend, intruding upon space he clearly needed."

A gust blew through once more, and the sisters stood back-to-back as the monster re-appeared before them. Noir tightened her grip on her guns, Blanc on her lance, and Huckmon prepared another burst.

The injured beast let out a frustrated cry, this time a mostly legible **"Koko Crusher!"** Then he _screamed,_ sending out shockwaves from his mouth that tore through the digitized ground before him as it blasted straight for the assembled holy warriors. Huckmon grabbed their quarry, and all three of them dove to the left, narrowly avoiding a sonic pummeling.

Noir quickly righted herself and charged towards the beast, crying out " _Mickey Bullet!"_ She leapt at him and started her own series of aerial pirouettes, her fingers slamming down on Anthony's twin triggers as her guns sprayed bullets in all directions, the largest concentration of them striking their intended target. Their formation properly broken, Blanc strode towards Apemon, who had begun yet another charge towards the young Digimon they were tasked with retrieving, and started pushing back his advance.

Huckmon just stood idly, keeping watch over the little guy who was _apparently_ the source of the massive power they were investigating. He knew his chance would come to leap into the fray again; the Sistermons were really good about letting him loose. For the time, though, the pale little kid was his priority while they were occupied. Not that he could understand how that was possible, given the fact that one of the beast-men was _literally teleporting._

Noir dashed back towards Huckmon, guns still trained on said teleporting beast-man. "Tag Blanc out and send her my way! You take the yellow guy!" Huckmon nodded wordlessly, and both broke off to their respective targets, leaving the small Digimon alone but both aggressors occupied.

Blanc was having very little trouble holding Apemon off, all things considered. With both other elements covered by her allies, and this brute's unwillingness to back down, she was able to fight uninhibited, and he was so focused on his own aggression that he wasn't remotely prepared for her fighting back. He certainly wasn't prepared for her actually being a skilled fighter, based on her observation of him as a dirty-fighting brawler.

Of course, the already off-guard Apemon was thrown back even more by a fireball to the face, and Huckmon leapt into interrupt the fight. "This guy's not worth your time. Noir needs help!" Blanc simply sighed, nodded, and left Apemon to her smaller companion; despite his Rookie status, he was more than a match for lesser Champions such as this one. The other... well, he was another matter entirely.

She darted to the other side of the battlefield, swept up the tiny Digimon they were supposed to be defending in ignorance of his protests, and met with her sister, who was unloading round after round into the mindless brute's face. Once she stopped, the creature started clutching at his face once more.

Noir blew the smoke away from Anthony's barrels and took up a new pose at her sister's side, one arm outstretched with her weapon pointing at their target. "This guy's the toughest Champion I've seen in ages. I think you know what we need to do."

Blanc nodded and mirrored Noir's posture, similarly targeting the beast with her lance. "We have certainly rehearsed this enough."

The monster let out another primal roar and charged towards the pair, his movements much swifter than his top-heavy bulk would have suggested. Blanc and Noir focused together, started advancing in perfect lockstep, and with a unified battlecry, met their target's charge with one of their own.

**"Grand Sister Cruz!"**

* * *

A young man sat by his lonesome on a bench looking out at Tokyo Bay, tapping away at his keyboard. His fingers were typing the answers to questions nearly as quickly as his brain was processing them, making short work of a series of mathematical equations on his homework assignment. He took a quick, deep breath, letting himself properly get in the zone.

Koushiro "Izzy" Izumi was a member of the original DigiDestined, and along with seven of his friends, kept both his own world and the Digital World safe from destruction. His adventures with his partner Tentomon three years ago were the greatest and most important milestone of his life, and he kept in touch with his connections in the Digital World to this day, even lending his support to the current DigiDestined.

However, life had largely moved on for him since the fall of Apocalymon. He'd sacrificed his Crest of Knowledge to properly repair the rest of the Digital World, advanced through his classes like a pro, gotten elected president of the computer club, and rekindled his straining relationship with his adoptive parents. He had everything in a fairly stable place, which meant the only pressing issues he had to concern himself with were school-related. This was where he found himself now, blasting through to the midpoint of his math problems.

His laptop flashed with an alert, completely disrupting his flow. Multiple readings displayed in his homework's place, correlating with energies and happenings in the Digital World. He scoffed quietly at the screen for a moment; clearly the Digimon Emperor must have been on the move again, which meant the DigiDestined were likely en route to fight him.

A closer look at the readings told a much different story, however. The signatures weren't as numerous as the DigiDestined and their partners, not by half. Despite that, however, the energy readings were wildly beyond any digivolution he knew them to still be capable of in the face of the Digimon Emperor's power dampening. Whatever was being picked up was bigger than anything they'd faced since Diaboromon.

Most concerning of all, they were heading in the opposite direction, coming into _his_ world. Whatever these things were, they seemed prepared to breach the barrier between worlds. The energy signatures only grew the weaker the barrier got, which told him there was still no telling how powerful these things really were.

He immediately grabbed his phone and hit the first number on his speed dial. He waited out the tone, eyes still fixed to the growing signatures on his screen, until a familiar voice picked up. "Hey, Izzy! What's up?"

"Tai, we have a _serious_ problem!"

* * *

A lone, vulpine figure stood atop a roof in the Shinjuku district of Tokyo in meditation. She knew better than to hassle her Tamer when there wasn't a job to do, so she spent her time honing and focusing her energy to keep herself sharp in the event of a new challenge. There were plenty of those to be had these days; Digimon have been regularly breaking through to this world, strong enough to wreak havoc if left unchecked but never strong enough to challenge the likes of her.

Something pulsed through the air, bathing her in unseen energies that made her muscles tense and her yellow fur stand on end. She turned to face the source and found nothing out of place, at least not that could be seen from her current vantage point. The whole situation read as wrong to her nonetheless, and for a fleeting moment, her stoic expression broke into a scowl.

"I have to tell Rika," she muttered to herself. She closed her eyes, and like a wispy breeze, she was gone.

Elsewhere, sitting alone on a park bench, a young girl attempted to drown out the world with music. She never meshed well with people, and the direction her life had taken recently had served to widen the divide even more. Her purpose was clear to her, and nothing happening around her was relevant to it.

A voice called to her, the tone hushed but still audible through her earbuds. "Rika."

With a pronounced sigh, Rika Nonaka freed up her ears and turned to the source of the interruption, which was perched largely in the shadows of a tree hanging above the bench. "You know _I_ call for _you,_ Renamon."

The shape of her Digimon associate dropped from the branch she was perched upon, keeping hidden against the trunk. "Something's coming. I can sense a new Digimon trying to enter the city."

"Why tell me now?" Rika chided, regarding her with an air of disapproval. "When the digital field appears, my D-Power will alert me. Why are you trying to cut in ahead of it?"

Renamon crossed her arms. "I shouldn't be able to sense it before it emerges, but I can already feel it. The energy I'm reading is... strange, and very powerful."

Rika's eyes widened, so subtly as to be almost imperceptible, and she turned away from her liaison. "A Digimon strong enough to be detected _before_ it breaches... I think this may be exactly the challenge we've been looking for. We'll be able to obtain enough power to take this to the next level."

Her gaze returned to her partner, and a less-than-warm smile crossed her face. "I'll be there as soon as the field opens. You already sense it, so you'd best be there ahead of me."

Renamon simply offered a nod in response. Rika turned away again, and she vanished.

* * *

The lumbering, teleporting beast was giving the combined might of the Sistermons a run for its money. Their movements were fluid and synchronized, Blanc's lance matching strikes with Noir's guns as they danced and wove around the creature. However, nothing seemed to hurt him or elicit any reaction except further anger, and every time they pushed him back, he warped away and spawned behind them, forcing them to constantly readjust and try again. The monster himself couldn't get many blows in either, as the ladies nimbly dodged every lunge of his stretching arms and every howl of his thunderous voice. It was a war of attrition, and neither side was slowing.

Meanwhile, Apemon was already down again.

Huckmon stood atop his struggling opponent's back, foreclaws pinning the ape's arms down. He was certainly a rowdy one, but he was pretty much the baseline of Champion power expectations, and Huckmon ate Champions for breakfast. The Sistermon duo were very adamant that, even at his level, he should be able to stand as their equal, and he'd be damned if he wasn't doing a good job of that thus far.

He advanced just enough to use his hindlegs to secure Apemon's arms, buried his face in the ground with a foreclaw, and turned to his allies. "Hey, this one's down! Hurry yours up!"

Without missing a beat or altering her patterns, Noir simply shot back, " _Shut up, we're trying!"_

The little Digimon Blanc was guarding clung desperately to her back, hanging on for dear life as she ducked and wove through the monster's assault. "Why are we even fighting? _I don't like fighting!"_

Neither Sistermon had the time to respond before their quarry howled again, raising his fists into the air with an ear-splitting bellow. The pair braced themselves to split off, ready to dodge another round of sonic shockwaves.

Instead, the flesh on the beast man's body began to flex and ripple, then suddenly tore from top to bottom, unveiling six metal cannons in two even columns. All six fired their energy salvos before the girls could even process or adjust, and despite their planned maneuver putting them out of most of the blast range, the final shot strayed from its path and careened straight towards where Noir was strafing. By the time she noticed, it was too late to correct her course.

 **"Bless Fire!"** With her cry, she whipped her guns to the side and fired upon the energy bullet heading for her. Anthony's blasts struck home, and the shot exploded with enough force to desync the sisters and force Noir into a slight skid.

She smirked cockily at the beast, brushing off her dress with one hand while keeping a gun trained on him. "That all you've got, you pile of junk data? I've seen _Rookies_ with better tricks up their sleeve!"

"Um, Noir..." Blanc attempted to interject.

"The teleporting made me think you were something special," Noir continued unimpeded, "but this is nothing! If you wanna size up to little ol' me, you're gonna have to—oh hey, he's getting _real_ big."

True to her word, the creature they were fighting had stopped aggressing them entirely. Instead, his hulking form began to expand, growing taller and wider and dwarfing the Sistermons more than he already did. The color seemed to darken and drain from him as well, and as he grew, it started to become apparent how: increasingly thick streams of energy were appearing from thin air and feeding power into his body.

Noir kept her gaze and aim trained on the beast, but started gingerly backing away. "What's going on? What's he doing?"

Blanc tensed up, the little Digimon on her back whimpering and hanging on for dear life as the monster kept growing. "The energy of this plane... he's taking it into his body. And if he continues unabated..."

The realization finally dawned on Noir, and she started advancing once more. "He's gonna collapse this entire plane of reality in on itself! We've gotta stop him!"

Huckmon perked up and looked back as, without any further hesitation, the Sistermon duo charged forward once again to face the creature that had now more than doubled in size. He took one last glance at Apemon, gave him a sound _thwack_ on the head to incapacitate him, and leapt off him to join the bigger fight. "Hang on, girls, I'm coming!"

The Sistermon duo had to leap to one side before Huckmon could join them properly thanks to another blow from the monster's extending arms. The blow, now faster and more powerful than ever, clipped Noir's ankle and caused her to fumble her landing, leaving her smaller sister to keep her standing.

The smaller Digimon in Blanc's care peeked up to look over her shoulder. "I didn't hear his fists hit the ground..."

Noir perked up immediately, grabbed Blanc, and tried to dive out of the way of the hand that had opted to track them rather than punch them. The speed granted by the new absorbed power outmatched Noir's own capabilities, and his fist closed around the two sisters, swinging up in the air with enough force to dislodge the little creature on Blanc's back. He landed on his rear with a small thud, and could only watch in horror as the rubbery arm smashed the Sistermons repeatedly into the ground.

Huckmon watched in horror as his friends were getting pummeled, and let out an indignant roar. "Get your stinking paws off them! **Teen Ram!"**

He hastened his charge, eyes fixed on the growing behemoth as his tail began to rotate of its own accord. Despite the creature's significant expansion, Huckmon's legs were still able to propel him towards his quarry's face in a single bound, and with another roar he slammed his tail like a drill straight between the eyes.

The larger beast blinked at the little dragon, completely unfazed and unharmed by the charge. Huckmon didn't even have the time to mutter his frustration before the monster retaliated with a headbutt that sent him crashing to the surface of the plane and skidding limply away from the fight.

The tiny white Digimon was frozen in place, eyes fixed on the scene before him. The nice people who came to save him from that mean monkey guy were getting whooped by an even meaner, even monkey-er guy. He was finally starting to feel safe, and now he didn't know _what_ he felt aside from scared. Too scared to even run away or close his eyes, and too scared to notice the groggy figure crawling towards him.

* * *

The Hypnos control room was awash with alarms as a sixth signature appeared and steadily expanded, the warning chimes filling the air with a cacophony of sirens as the two women urgently dismissed them to recollect their bearings.

"There is a new Wild One on the scene," the blonde warned. "It's emitting some kind of energy... nothing we can identify. Our tracers are being disrupted."

Their boss below grimaced, snapping his lighter shut harshly. "Now _that's_ a problem. Never seen a Wild One we couldn't tag. How long until bio-emergence?"

For the first time since the batch of signals appeared, the brunette looked out of her chair to face her employer. "By my estimation... two minutes, sir."

" _Dammit!"_ he cried, slamming his fist into his desk. "The single instances are bad enough, but I'm not about to let _six_ Wild Ones through at the same time! We have to flip the kill switch before they breach."

The woman addressing him recoiled slightly. "Yuggoth, sir!? But... but it's still rebooting after its last use! We don't know what will happen if we use it in such an unstable—"

"What option do we have, Riley!?" he snapped back. "I can't fathom the destruction we'd have on our hands if we let six of these things into our world, _especially_ ones with readings this insane! Activate Yuggoth and _delete them!"_

Riley grimaced at him for just a moment longer, then turned back to her console. " _Yes, sir."_

Seconds later, a new signature appeared a distance away from the assembled dots, steadily advancing on them. The blonde nodded slightly, mostly to herself. "Yuggoth has located the Wild Ones, sir."

Her boss's smirk returned, and he flipped the lid of his lighter once more. "Wipe them out. _All_ of them."

* * *

The spectral figure loomed above the continuing struggle, having decided to follow Noir and Huckmon after yet more sorrowful introspection, yet helpless to participate with his flickering form despite his burning need to protect his friends below. They were fighting a losing battle against the monster below that was steadily growing in both size and power, and even if he were at his own full power, even if he were fully corporeal, he might not have been able to make a difference. Just watching the fruitless struggle dredged up all the memories once again, of standing up to something much more dangerous and ferocious than himself for the sake of another and getting obliterated for his efforts, and his fists clenched in impotent frustration.

Then he looked further and saw a tiny Digimon staring just as helplessly, oblivious to the Apemon struggling to crawl his way towards it. Perhaps he could be of some assistance after all. He tightened his grip on the staff, and with a building resolve, he began his descent.

Apemon tried his hardest to stifle all of his pained groans as he dragged himself along the digital field, not wanting to startle the little runt until it was too late to escape. If he could just grab his prey and get out, everything would be fine, and he'd probably never have to see that meddling Sistermon or her cronies ever again. Not that'd they'd be able to stop him anyway if they popped up again, because by then he'd almost certainly have used that squirt's energy to—

"No further."

He managed to direct his gaze upward to the new voice. The figure was difficult to make out, and he couldn't tell if that was its incorporeality, the perpetual silhouette that seemed to be shrouding it, or the pain from his own injuries affecting his perception, but one thing was clear as day: this newcomer was going to be _another_ obstacle.

"I'm done wallowing and standing idly," the new form declared, raising what appeared to be a staff as his hand slowly grew more solid. "My friends are fighting to protect this child, and I will not allow you to take him while they are distracted. This form is weakened, but I will use every ounce of strength I still have."

Apemon just grumbled in frustration and looked back down, bracing himself for yet another blow and basically resigning himself to it. He was seriously doubting this kid was worth all the trouble.

Unfortunately, more trouble came in the form of an ear-splitting shrieking noise. Even the titanic monster absorbing the plane howled in agony, and dropped his opponents in order to clutch his ears, everyone else present quickly doing likewise.

After a moment of unceasing droning, Noir started looking around for whatever was creating it. "Where is that!? _What_ is that!?"

As if to answer her question, a brilliant light washed over the area, blinding the group of combatants momentarily. When it dissipated, Noir looked up in the direction of the noise and the light. A massive green aura pulsed above them, containing three glowing pink balls surrounded by yellow shielding. Crackling electric energy connected the orbs to a central point, the nexus radiating an ominous red light as the balls orbited around it. As it spun, it propelled itself towards the group, the aura threatening to swallow them whole.

"This is unlike any Digimon I have ever seen," Blanc observed, gripping her lance tightly. "What could it be?"

Huckmon dropped his cowl over his head with a smirk. "We strike it right now, it could be _junk data!_ Let's go!"

"Huckmon, don't—" Blanc protested, but Huckmon already started his advance, charging at full speed towards where the energy structure seemed to be coming down. " _Stop!_ We've no idea what this... this _thing_ could do!"

"That's why it's gotta go!" Noir shouted back to her sister, having started her own charge. She caught up to Huckmon quickly, her twin pistols crossed in front of her as she readied her strike.

Even their current foe seemed distracted by the coming object, but made no move to advance on it as Huckmon and Noir did. Instead, he slowly turned towards it, manic eyes completely affixed to the swirling orbs and glowing red light. Then he howled ferociously at it, his torso shredding open again as he fired upon the inanimate intruder.

Noir chuckled softly as the cannonballs sailed above her head. "Well, looks like his head's in the game after all. Come on, let's not let him take all the glory! **Mickey Bullet!"**

Huckmon shot her a smirk as she started unloading a barrage of holy bullets on the approaching target, and matched it with a stream of fire from his mouth. **"Baby Flame!"**

The abstract construct shuddered from the assault, crackling and buckling from the force behind the unified attacks. Before long, the form exploded, the shockwaves pushing back the entire group as the new menace was handily vanquished.

Noir chuckled as she stood up and brushed herself off. "Ha! See? Not an issue!"

Blanc, however, took a few steps back, eyes affixed to the area where the droning form once was. The outward force of the explosion had begun turning inward instead. "If it was not before... I think it is now."

Her sister didn't take long to register the response, nor the sudden rush of energy getting sucked back towards the area as it began to implode and fold in on itself. She backed up to meet Blanc once more, watching the remnants of the aura condense to a single point. There was a moment's stillness before the space it once occupied tore violently open into a massive, swirling vortex, one that seemed intent on consuming the entire plane.

"Noir, the plane was _already_ unstable!" Blanc chided, even as she took hold of her bigger sister and planted Cross Barbée into the ground to keep them stable. "Now you've hastened what that behemoth was trying to do!"

"How was I supposed to know this would happen!?" Noir shot back, watching the monster Blanc was referring to give out one last roar before vanishing without a trace as suddenly as it had appeared.

The rest of the assembled Digimon struggled to escape the gaping maw of the dimensional vortex, those who still had the strength to run finding the effort completely pointless against the force of the vacuum. Huckmon, however, managed to secure himself by sinking his claws into the ground, deep enough to stay anchored even against the gale-force winds blasting them all. The newest arrival kept himself planted to the ground as well, his hand and staff solid enough to take hold and keep him from falling into the abyss. Both could only watch as, either tragically or thankfully, the winded and beaten Apemon was handily sucked up into the blackness without any meaningful struggle or protest.

A shrill, childish scream stopped the phantom from dwelling on the loss, as the Digimon everyone else had come to save lost his footing and started to fall away as well. Focusing as hard as he could on his form, he stabilized his other arm just in time to grab the little one as he flew past, holding him tight as he shielded them both from the winds.

The child clung desperately to his arm like a liferaft. "Thank you, thank you, _thank you!"_ The good samaritan managed a nod, and watched as the vortex began to shrink, having lost some power against the plane's attempt to right itself.

The arm keeping his staff to the ground started to flicker out of corporeality, giving him a sudden start. "Perhaps you shouldn't thank me yet..."

The moment the words left his mouth, both arms phased out and the smaller creature passed right through his intangible form. He gave out a final, desperate cry of " _Somebody, please help me!"_ before he was consumed by the vortex.

As he watched the child disappear, the ghostly figure felt his staff finally lose purchase as well. The closing maw dragged him toward itself, and he could only look back at his friends with a look of remorse as it sent him to parts unknown, its final action before sealing completely shut.

* * *

Riley clattered helplessly away on her console's keyboard, trying desperately to appease the deafening warning sirens blasting through the console room. "It didn't work, sir! Yuggoth... they destroyed Yuggoth!"

Her boss dropped the lighter, eyes wide and fists clenched. "How? How strong _are_ they!?"

"That's not all," the other woman called down. "Yuggoth failed to abort the full bio-emergence. Four Wild Ones were held at bay, but two have breached completely. They are in the city now. I'm sorry, sir."

" _Dammit!"_ he screamed, slamming his fists on his own console. "If they can break Yuggoth, they could break all of Tokyo! _Find them!"_

* * *

A potent fog plumed through a concentrated portion of Shinjuku, billowing out from a hidden rift between the two worlds as a signal of an impending bio-emergence. If anyone were to take time out of their day to look upon the fog, they would likely have questioned why it seemed contained within a single alleyway.

As it was, the only eyes upon the area belonged to Rika and Renamon, and to them, this was all very routine.

"Show yourself!" Rika challenged. The fog didn't respond to the provocation, but it continued to spill forth, thickening around them and slowly smothering the light.

Renamon's fists clenched as the alley grew progressively darker. "Rika, something's off about this one. Whatever's coming, we should be caref-"

"Enough," Rika snapped, turning to her partner and regarding her coolly. "No excuses. No chickening out. We have an enemy to face, and from your intel, probably the strongest one yet. Our goal's the same as always, and assuming you're right about this, you'll have finally taken in enough data to digivolve to your Champion form. I'll accept _nothing less."_

Renamon simply sighed and nodded. She recognized that Rika was her path to getting stronger, and it wouldn't do either herself or the self-styled Digimon Queen any good to fail when the reward was so tantalizingly great.

The fog thinned enough for the deposited Digimon to come into view. Against Rika's expectations, however, there were three of them. One looked like a giant humanoid ape; another looked tiny and helpless, with pleading eyes and a triangle formation on its forehead. The third was much harder to make out, its body obscured largely by crackling electricity, but it was the only one of the bunch that couldn't bring itself to stand upright, implying that it was already injured.

Rika's face hardened in determination. "Three in one... this really _will_ be a challenge."

Her hand went to a white device attached to her belt by a blue strap. This used to simply be a card reader for the Digimon card game, but through the power of a mysterious blue card she scanned through it, it gave form to her partner and allowed her to grant Renamon strength. The D-Power had turned into the most important tool in her life, and helped her see her calling to conquer every challenge and stand unopposed as the strongest Tamer to ever live.

She unstrapped the D-Power and held it aloft in front of the mass of Digimon in the fog. After a moment of scanning and analyzing, its findings came back, and Rika flipped it around to examine the screen.

* * *

**Digimon Analyzer:**

  
**  
Name:** **Apemon**

 **Level:** **Champion**

 **Attribute:** **Vaccine**

 **Apemon is an Animal Digimon who's sighted rarely enough that most consider him a legend. It's rumored that he draws his spiritual** **energy from the Holy Ring on his finger. He uses his Mega Bone Stick to demolish his enemies.**

  
[](https://www.deviantart.com/users/outgoing?https://vignette.wikia.nocookie.net/digimon/images/4/43/Calumon_b.jpg/revision/latest?cb=20100711074348)**  
Name:** **Calumon**

 **Level:** **N/A**

 **Attribute:** **N/A**

**No Data.**

**  
**  
[](https://www.deviantart.com/users/outgoing?https://www.google.com/url?sa=i&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=images&cd=&ved=2ahUKEwiWhZ2EsNrjAhUMc3AKHZqEA34QjRx6BAgBEAU&url=https%3A%2F%2Fen.wiktionary.org%2Fwiki%2Fquestion_mark&psig=AOvVaw3e5mr9RIEKt08la-5_sWXB&ust=1564498145525965)**  
Name:** **N/A**

 **Level:** **N/A**

 **Attribute:** **N/A**

**No Data.**

* * *

Rika's eyebrow quirked up at the sight on her screen. Everything checked out for Apemon, though the data she received on him didn't suggest the level of challenge she'd prepared for. The other two, however... the little one registered nothing but a name, Calumon; and the one wreathed in lightning didn't register at all. That one must have been the source of the intense energy Renamon sensed, because lord knew it _couldn't_ have been the Calumon.

Apemon smashed the ground with his club and growled at the pair, prompting her to casually look up from her D-Power. Of the three, the monkey man seemed to be the only openly aggressive one, effectively painting the target right on his back. She absently swished her hand forward to signal for Renamon to advance. "Get the big one first. And let's hope you're right."

Calumon cowered behind his injured friend as he watched the fox creature approach, whimpering at the sight of the shimmering razor-sharp leaves surrounding her. "This isn't good..."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> To Be Continued...
> 
> What mysteries lie within the form of little Calumon, and why has it drawn the attention of so many? Can the DigiDestined discover the cause and purpose of this new trend of bio-emergence? And what is the nature of the savage beast that attacked Huckmon and the Sistermons? All this and more, still to come...
> 
> \-----
> 
> Next Time on Digimon United:
> 
> Davis scoffed. “What could be so important that we’re ignoring the Emperor?”
> 
> Izzy responded by presenting his laptop, several warning signs still displaying. “Digimon are coming into our world again. My radar picked up a huge signature in Shinjuku.”
> 
> ...
> 
> The towering figure crossed his arms. “Go to the human world, find that Digimon, and let nothing stop you from bringing him back.”
> 
> Huckmon, Blanc and Noir nodded and bowed before him. “Yes, master.”
> 
> ...
> 
> Rika groaned in annoyance and crossed her arms. “I’m going to tell you exactly once: back off!”
> 
> The other Tamer’s determined expression didn’t falter for a moment. “If you’re gonna keep hunting innocent Digimon, I’m just gonna have to stop you! Get ‘em, Guilmon!:
> 
> \-----
> 
> Welcome to the re-rewritten version of "Digimon United." The prose has been reformatted from the ground up, but the story and its structure will remain intact. Enjoy!


	2. Foes from the Other Side (Part 2)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Last Time on Digimon United:
> 
> A brand new adventure has begun. A monstrous new threat has emerged out of nowhere to threaten the emissaries of a powerful protector. A shadow organization mobilizes against the perceived menace of Digital Monsters. An emergence into the material world has alerted heroes both old and new. And all this chaos centers around a small white Digimon, whose importance is still not fully known...

Rika stared at the structured mess of Digimon cards splayed out across her living room table, as she did just about every time she went out for a hunt. Each one was hand-picked since long before the creatures depicted on them became harsh realities, and she knew the analogue effects and powers by heart. Even now, the structure remained important, and it was perfectly intact and unchanged, meaning nothing got lost or taken during or after the previous fight.

The game used to be so much simpler. If a player had the bigger numbers and the better supports, and if the luck of the draw was on their side, it was easy to win. There was an element of strategy as well, but Rika often felt like the only person around that paid attention to combos and synergies to more than the most rudimentary degree. It was child’s play to claim the title of Digimon Queen when the people around her were too dumb and weak to contest it.

Now, however, the game had changed completely. Digimon were _real;_ there was a major incident in Odaiba three years ago that made that abundantly clear. For some reason, they’ve been coming again over the last six months, though as isolated emergencies rather than an all-out siege. This new trend of appearances had led to a lot of changes in Rika’s life, including the appearance (well, _selection)_ of Renamon as her personal Digimon partner. Now her cards and D-Power worked in brand new ways, each card making temporary alterations to Renamon’s data and giving her boosts that propelled her above the toughest Champions—and nearly every Digimon they’d fought had been a Champion. She still hadn’t used every card yet since the hunts began, and even though the support-styled option cards were straightforward in how they affected Renamon, the much more potent Digimon cards were still unpredictable. She always hesitated to experiment in urban environments full of potential collateral damage and near-certain exposure, but in more open combat zones she relished every chance to use a new Digimon card, because the sooner she learned what each one actually did to her partner, the less she’d leave to chance in the future.

Even then, she still couldn’t bust out the heaviest hitters in her deck, the Ultimates and Megas. Six months simply hadn’t been enough for Renamon to absorb the data needed to handle that kind of rush. The overload, she’d learned the hard way, was devastating. The yellow fox had trounced Champions so handily that Rika was certain they were ready to take on an Ultimate, so potent a fighter that she may never have considered digivolving her at all. The stronger cards in her deck and their effect on her led to the conclusion that she did, in fact, need to at least become a Champion. Thus far, though, nothing Rika put Renamon through had been enough.

Until today, that was. Renamon had a lead on a powerful emergence, long before it actually emerged. Anything that could be detected that early had to be exactly what she needed to breach that power barrier and digivolve. All she had to do was win that fight, and Rika wouldn’t let her do otherwise. That’s why this deck examination session was so important; no matter what the job turned out to be, she needed the right tools for it.

_Nothing else matters,_ she kept telling herself the whole two hours she’d been at this. _Nothing._

“Rika?”

The Digimon Queen let out an exasperated sigh and turned to face the source of the distraction. Her mother Rumiko was standing in the doorway, her expression somewhere between concerned and apologetic. She was wearing a light jacket over what Rika was certain _wasn’t_ her normal attire. In fact, she recognized the exact outfit as one her mother had been sent for her next—

“My next photo shoot is in an hour,” she confessed. “My manager just called; I need to go. I’m so sorry, but you’ll need to start dinner tonight without me.”

Rika turned away and went back to shifting through her cards. “Okay. Bye.”

A moment of silence passed. She found that silence a bit conspicuous, because she wasn’t far enough back in her zone to not hear her mom leave. That meant she was still standing there, for reasons that completely escaped her.

Rumiko cleared her throat. “You know, I’m sure Miki wouldn’t mind if you joined me. You could just watch, or... maybe the photographer would be happy to get shots of us both togeth—”

_“Bye,”_ Rika repeated harshly, not even looking up this time.

“Alright, alright,” Rumiko relented. “I’ll see you in the morning. Goodnight.” Rika heard footsteps at last, on top of the door sliding shut. Her mother was gone.

She returned to the task at hand, exchanging the orders of the same two cards over and over again as she contemplated their interactions. She supposed she should feel bad about blowing her mother off again, but that photo shoot wasn’t important right now. Becoming the strongest Tamer in the world was the only priority that mattered, no matter what that pit of guilt in her stomach tried to say about it.

She didn’t need to distract herself for much longer, because her D-Power released a loud chime.

A bio-emergence was finally occurring.

“Renamon,” Rika called out. She vaguely recalled telling her to wait at the point of emergence, but at this point summoning for her was just second nature. The question, then, was whether her partner complied with the past order or the current call. The answer turned out to be the latter; a shadow loomed suddenly over her, and Renamon watched wordlessly as Rika re-assembled her deck and slotted it into the pouch on her belt, right beside her D-Power.

“I’ve got the location,” Renamon declared as her partner stood up, still a few heads shorter than her. “Twenty minutes away.”

“Let’s go,” Rika responded, leading her partner out the door and dashing towards her next challenge.

* * *

Takato Matsuki secured the goggles strapped to his head as he ran through a secluded, oft-ignored section of Shinjuku Park. He dashed through the paths and bushes, eventually sighting the little den his friend Henry helped him find. Once he reached it, he shifted the backpack containing the day-old bread he took from his family’s bakery.

“Hey, buddy,” He called into the empty expanse of the shelter. “I brought food.”

He was immediately tackle-hugged by the eager creature that leapt forth from the den and knocked Takato flat on his back. It was a red, draconic creature with wing-like ears, yellow eyes, numerous black markings across its body, and an excitedly wagging tail. “Takatomon! What did you bring me?”

This was Guilmon, Takato’s Digimon partner. Like Renamon, Guilmon came to be when his card was scanned through Takato’s D-Power right after a mysterious blue card. However, he didn’t exist as an _actual_ Digimon card from the game, but rather as a drawing Takato himself had doodled as an original character meant to be Agumon’s better in every way. He became a reality and quickly became Takato’s friend, and he had been living in a hidden corner of the park ever since.

“Well, uh...” Takato pushed his partner off him and sat back upright, taking off his backpack and opening it to examine its contents. “It’s squished bread, Guilmon.”

“Does squished taste like cinnamon?” Guilmon asked, immediately stuffing his head into the pack and devouring the destroyed bread.

Takato just sighed and shook his head, letting Guilmon have his way, muttering, “Sure, yeah, why not.” He idly wondered what kind of food Digimon like his partner actually ate where they were from, and whether they had to go through means as complicated as having a third party smuggle it to give to them.

Probably not.

_Hopefully_ not.

The thought of food quickly left both of their minds as Guilmon suddenly wrenched his head out of the bag, letting loose a feral growl as his pupils narrowed. His head darted around in a direction that seemed random.

“Guilmon?” Takato asked concernedly, but the reptile didn’t respond. His red D-Power, however, lit up with a compass pointing in the exact same direction. A Digimon had bio-emerged again, and it was setting off Guilmon’s hunting instincts. There was a fight coming; once Guilmon got like this, it really couldn’t be helped.

With a resolved nod, he put his backpack on once more and darted off where his Digivice pointed, his partner dashing alongside him as they prepared to engage.

* * *

The new DigiDestined assembled in the school computer room they typically used as a terminal to access the Digital World. However, rather than diving in right away to meet the latest challenge of the nefarious Digimon Emperor, their friend Izzy had called for them to gather for another reason, one that only one of them so far was immediately privy to. Kari Kamiya and her Digimon partner, a small feline creature named Gatomon, were alerted to the emergency by her brother Tai, the first person Izzy had called. He’d seemed slightly frenzied when delivering the summons to his sister, but it sounded like something was coming through _from_ the Digital World.

After a moment of idle chatter—mostly consisting of their de facto leader Davis Motomiya complaining about a particular missed goal in his last soccer game—Izzy himself finally entered the room, nodding to the group as he confirmed that everyone had arrived. “Thank you all for coming. I’m sorry for the short notice and the shift in priority, but right now, I think the Digimon Emperor needs to be put on the back burner.”

Davis scoffed, adjusting his goggles. “What could be _so important_ that we’re ignoring the Emperor?”   
  


“Yeah!” His partner, DemiVeemon, chimed up from atop his head. “He’s _always_ up to somethin’, and we can’t give him all this time to do somethin’ else!”

Kari sighed hopelessly. “I already told you. If you’d been _listening...”_

Izzy responded by presenting his laptop, several warning signs still displaying. “Digimon are coming into _our_ world again. My radar picked up a huge signature in Shinjuku. It’s been on the fritz for hours.”

One of the boys shook his head—Takeru “T.K.” Takaishi. He, along with Kari, had been a part of the original DigiDestined traveling party before joining the new one, but unlike Kari, he’d been there from the very start. She hadn’t seen Devimon or Etemon, but she’d definitely been around for the incident that occurred three years ago in Odaiba, the one that immediately stuck out in T.K.’s mind. A vampiric Digimon by the name of Myotismon had broken into their world and sent an invading force, exposing the existence of Digimon to the world and putting countless lives at risk. Many good Digimon got caught up in it as well; he still remembered what happened to Gotsumon and Pumpkinmon, and Gatomon surely remembered Wizardmon dying before her eyes.

He sighed deeply, tipping his bucket hat out of his field of vision. “I was hoping Kari was wrong about that. That’s the last thing I want happening again.”

“We don’t have much of a choice in the matter,” Izzy replied, still cycling through his laptop’s readings. “Not only is it happening now, it’s apparently _been_ happening with some consistency for six months.”

Kari’s attention snapped back to Izzy. “Six _months?_ Digimon have been bleeding through for that long, and we’re only learning about it _now?!”_

“I can’t put my finger on it either,” Izzy admitted. “I think I only caught this one because of the size and number of the signatures. This new trend of breakthroughs seems to be associated with electrical interference, accompanied by mysterious fog banks, and maybe most curiously of all, localized completely in the Shinjuku district. At least, that’s what my research has been telling me, but it’s not all I’ve got.”

“There’s more!?” The cry came from Cody Hida, the youngest of the new DigiDestined.

Izzy nodded grimly and opened up a new folder on his computer containing a series of images. He pulled up the first one in the lineup, which didn’t look like much at first glance when enlarged; like he said, it looked like a picture of fog.

Yolei Inoue, the last of the new DigiDestined, leaned in closer and adjusted her glasses. “What are we supposed to be looking at?”

“There must be something else to this image,” Her partner Poromon chimed from her arms’ grasp. “But I’m not picking it up either.”

However, Cody’s eyes widened as he examined it and suddenly took the laptop, startling his partner Upamon into nearly losing balance on his shoulder. “Gah! Cody, be careful!”

“There’s something in the fog!” he exclaimed, pointing insistently at the screen. “Some kind of giant cyborg gorilla! Look!” He pressed his finger roughly against the screen (Izzy’s eye twitched just watching him) and traced the shape he saw in the fog. Several of his compatriots were able to make it out once he started; a humanoid shape resembling a gorilla, save what looked like a cannon in place of its right arm.

T.K.’s partner Patamon perked up at the sight, his wing-ears straightening out. “I see it! That’s Gorillamon!”

Davis tilted his head and pressed his hand to his chin. “Nope. I’ve got nothing.”

_“Thank you,_ Cody,” Izzy chided, taking the laptop back from him with a slight glare. He set it back on the desk and cycled through a few more images, some more distinct than others but all of them featuring figures that shouldn’t be in their native world.

“That’s got to be DemiMeramon!” Poromon said of the second image, ruffling his little wings to get comfortable in Yolei’s grasp. “Or maybe Candlemon, and we can’t see the rest...”

Upamon bounced on Cody’s shoulder as he recognized the third one. “Hey, I think I can make out Penguinmon!”

“And that one’s Floramon,” Gatomon declared, leaping onto the desk and flipping through a few more images. “Woodmon... Goblimon... they’re all Champions and Rookies. That’s a relief, they can be managed.”

“Not easily,” Kari reminded her. “You’re the _only_ Champion in the group; no one else here can get that high without the Digi-Eggs. And even _then,_ you’re down to a Rookie’s power without your tail ring.”

Gatomon grimaced at her partner, said tail drooping out of sight. “Fine. But we can’t just sit around now that we know this is happening. How are they not causing _cat_ astrophic property damage?”

“I have some theories on that,” Izzy remarked. “There are never reports of attacks associated with these appearances, and a number of the Digimon who emerge are gone by the time the fog lifts. It could be that they’re just seeking refuge for some reason, maybe hiding out to escape the Emperor. It’s also possible that some of them _are_ hostile... but something’s pushing them back. If _that’s_ the case, then whatever’s keeping the bad ones out of the city can’t keep up with what’s coming through and needs help, not to mention that we don’t understand how this is happening in the first place.”

“So you want us to go to Shinjuku and help handle it!” Yolei exclaimed, tightening her grip on Poromon as he flailed in protest. “A Digimon adventure right here in Tokyo!”

T.K. and Kari shared a glance. Neither of them were as enthused as Yolei about that prospect.

“But how would _we_ get them back?” Cody interjected. “We don’t know what’s being done to push these Digimon back, and we don’t know if we’re equipped to do it the same way. We’ve got the portals here in this room, but I don’t think we can get a potentially hostile Digimon from Shinjuku back to Odaiba safely, and especially not without being noticed.”

“We don’t bring them back here,” Izzy declared. His own partner, Motimon, popped out of his bag, handing him a second laptop which he then bequeathed to Kari. He then shut the one he’d been using and handed it off to T.K. “The DigiGate terminal is routed through here as well. You just need to defeat the invading Digimon, then force them through the gate through one of the laptops.”

Cody looked at the second laptop in Kari’s hands, arching his brow. “Why are there two laptops?”

Kari sighed and shook her head. “Because my brother broke his last one, and now he keeps a spare. Clearly he’s not forgiven Tai for it yet.”

_“Never,”_ Izzy deadpanned.

“Wait, hold on a second!” Yolei interjected. “I think we should loop back to what Davis was saying earlier. You’re right, this is _super_ important and we need to do something about it... but we can’t forget about the Emperor. He’s still wreaking havoc in the Digital World, and if we’re in Shinjuku dealing with Digimon, we’re not in the Digital World dealing with _him_.”

“Thank you,” Davis mumbled.

“We’ve got it covered!” Motimon chimed in at last. “Tai and Sora are there already, doing what they can to help out. Izzy and I are going to help them as soon as we’re done here!”

Izzy nodded and patted his partner on the head as his friends packed the computers. “This should be _your_ primary concern. The last thing anyone wants is one of the Emperor’s brainwashed minions attacking the city. You’re all equipped to confront that threat if it ever happens, and if the thing keeping the bad Digimon from hurting anyone is another group of DigiDestined, they’d do well with your help.”

Davis gave Izzy a cocky smile and a thumbs-up. “You can count on us, Izzy! I’ll drag those Digimon into the portal myself if that’s what it comes down to!”

“Booyah!” DemiVeemon exclaimed, hopping atop Davis’s head.

“Let’s hope it doesn’t come to that,” T.K. replied. “The last thing any of these Digimon need is to be caught in your iron headlock.” He clapped Davis on the back as their friends laughed along, all of them leaving together on a brand new kind of adventure.

* * *

On the fringes of the limbo plane, close enough to the border of the Digital World that the physical properties of the area still had cohesion to them, there sat a temple. As a standing example of the influence human culture has had on the data that comprises the Digital World, the structure bore a keen resemblance to Buddhist architecture. It was split into six sections, each bearing a chamber evenly as tall as the last, flanking a large tower at its center.

This is where Huckmon found himself now, hesitantly entering the premises of his and the Sistermons’ master. They failed in their mission to protect the tiny white Digimon, and he would have preferred to be here by himself to take the verbal lashing and be done with it. However, Blanc had insisted on joining him. There wasn’t anything _inherently_ wrong with that; she was Noir’s equal, but also still a Rookie like him, and he felt the same level of kinship towards her that he shared with her sister.

The reason it irked him to come to the temple with Blanc was one she made no effort to change. He _really_ wanted to just get the scolding over with, just storm into the main spire and let the boss have at him. What stopped him from doing so was that Blanc refused to enter the main tower without paying tribute at the surrounding towers, and the insistence that she join Huckmon left him feeling like it was his obligation to follow her as she made her rounds. It wasn’t a small temple, either, so the trip took her a couple of hours to make between traveling to each tower and paying her respects.

The first chamber she stopped at was the biggest no-brainer. The Royal Knights were revered protectors of the Digital World, serving the will of Yggdrasil itself. Blanc always spent the longest in this chamber, both because of the size of this particular pantheon and because of the personal connection she and Huckmon had with the group.

The second chamber was to revere the Olympos XII, a mighty group of Digimon who protected the Iliad server. The third was dedicated to the three Celestial Digimon who defended the Kernel, the heart of the Digital World where their creator god resided. The fourth paid homage to the Ten Legendary Warriors, ancient elemental Digimon who made the ultimate sacrifice in the distant past to seal away a terrible evil. The fifth chamber was structured in reverence to the Digimon Sovereigns, the direct guardians of the four quarters of the Digital World.

She skipped the sixth chamber; she always did. Huckmon understood exactly why, too. The group honored in the final shrine was _not_ one a holy Digimon should ever pray to, and it raised the question of why there was even a shrine for them in the first place. He’d once asked his master about it, but he simply stated that power must be respected in all its forms, no matter its use. Huckmon didn’t understand it in the slightest then, and still didn’t now. If it were up to him, he’d have liked to see them all eradicated from the face of the world.

As they _finally_ reached the main temple to join Noir, he absently hoped eradication wasn’t on his boss’s mind once he learned exactly how badly they messed up. That the Digimon they were charged with protecting, and their friend who still wasn’t whole yet, got whisked away to Yggdrasil-knows-where.

Noir noticed the nervousness in Huckmon’s face as they began the long walk through the main tower together, and grinned from ear to ear. “Oh, he’s gonna be _maaaaad...”_

Blanc shot her a glare, though Noir’s own expression didn’t falter, and patted their friend on the back. “Just relax. He has been very patient and understanding with us thus far. Be honest and thorough, and he will be fair with you.”

Huckmon sighed, tensing up a little at Blanc’s touch. “He was so sure we could do this, though.”

“So were we,” Noir reminded him. “And if the only thing there was Apemon, we would’ve. It was that big teleporting thing that screwed us up, and then that other giant thing that tried to... I dunno, geometry us to death?” She looked to Blanc. “Did we ever learn what that was?”

“I haven’t the slightest,” Blanc said, shaking her head. “But both those factors will be important to note.”

Huckmon nodded slightly, calming himself just a little with a deep breath. “Yeah. I’m just hoping I can catch him in a good mood. We’ll have a better chance of not being punished if he’s in good spirits.”

Noir had a hearty laugh at that. “Yeah, he’s usually very _spirited._ And if he happens to not be today, we’ll just have to come to terms with nonexistence! _”_

_“Noir!”_ Blanc scolded, smacking her upside the head with her lance. She simply rubbed her head and chuckled, clearly not regretting her statement.

Huckmon sighed again, and all three stopped in their tracks. The paper screen door to their master’s chambers, a more traditional Japanese touch, was directly in front of them. It was much larger than any door of its type in the other world—given the average stature of a Digimon of their master’s caliber, it had to be—but the material was still lightweight and partially opaque. In this moment, however, the door felt much heavier combined with the heft of their failure. Even now, so close to him that he could probably see they were there from their shadows on the other side, it felt like the simple act of reporting to him was a journey through the bleakest, blackest ocean.

“We’ll cover for you if you wanna fake your death,” Noir stated, trying to ease the tension she knew they were all feeling. Another smack from Blanc signaled that it didn’t work.

“Deep breaths, Huckmon,” Blanc advised, patting his back once more. “You know he’s merciful. Be honest, be sincere, and be humble, and he may not even punish you at all.”

“Yeah, he also might obliter—” Noir began, but Blanc brought the trident forward once again, the center prong nudging against the bridge of her nose. She rolled her eyes, more annoyed than threatened, but held her tongue all the same.

With her sister silenced, Blanc continued. “Reporting is your duty, but you need not undertake it alone. Noir and I could join you in there.”

Huckmon shook his head. “It’s my burden to bear. It’ll probably look like you’re there to make excuses for yourselves if you come with me. Let me just go in there and take my medicine.”

Blanc looked at him solemnly for a moment longer, then gave him a small nod and backed away. Noir followed suit shortly after, and Huckmon caught some muttering about calling dibs on his stuff if anything happened.

The young scout took one last second to steel himself, breathed deeply, then threw the door open.

The room was completely empty, save the curtain obscuring his master’s bed. The thick fabric kept the bed completely shrouded, and consequently the figure atop it was hidden as well. The boss liked to keep things relatively humble, as if the ideals that influenced the building’s architecture meant something to him.

Huckmon sighed again and pushed the curtain back, breaching the final barrier between himself and his likely disappointed boss. There was a small assortment of pillows neatly arranged by the foot of the bed so that any guests could kneel comfortably in front of him, as Huckmon did now.

“My lord,” he announced, trying to sound vaguely confident. “I’ve returned.”

Silence. There was definitely a figure lying in the bed, but he didn’t even stir.

Huckmon arched his brow, and called out again. “Master!”

There was a sharp snorting noise as a large form jolted upright without warning. “Wuh? Whozat?”

The small dragon sighed. “It’s Huckmon, sir...”

The master grumbled and laid right back down in his bed. “Five more minutes...”

There was no denying it now, he was definitely “spirited.” Huckmon had seen his master drunk enough times to know what it looked like, and he hadn’t even finished sleeping it off yet. The time he’d told them would be spent praying had most likely gone instead to some sort of raucous celebration; he was a social sort who apparently had friends everywhere in the Digital World. When he came back inebriated, he was always loose, informal, and before too long, narcoleptic.

Huckmon growled in frustration and smacked the nearest bedpost with a claw. _“I have a mission report!”_

“Ugh, _fine,”_ The master groaned, sitting back up in the bed and clutching his head. “Yeah, I sent you to do the thing. The thing with the, uh...”

Huckmon facepalmed. “The energy signature.”

“Yeah, _that_ thing!”

“We, um...” He started, but paused a moment. Even with his boss still tipsy at best, he still wanted to approach the briefing with a little tact. “We ran into several complications.”

The next several moments—longer than Huckmon would have liked, due to his master’s state—were dedicated to describing the events of their mission. He went over the confrontation with the teleporting beast and the Apemon, the unusual construct that descended upon them, and the consequences of its destruction.

“...I don’t know where the big guy went, but the others... including our friend... they got sent away. If I had to guess, to the other world.”

Huckmon sighed softly as his report ended. There was an agonizing several seconds that were spent just trying to read his master’s reaction. He seemed less out of it, which was possibly a plus, but he remained stone-faced in that moment of silence, hand pensively stroking his chin.

Finally, he bellowed out. “Blanc! Noir! I know you’re out there, please come in.”

Huckmon perked up at the order, but didn’t have time to process it. At his command, the door instantly opened again, and the two Sistermons rushed into their master’s chambers with their heads bowed. “Sir!”

The boss finally emerged completely from underneath the covers, rose out of the bed entirely, and stood before his pupils. While not the largest Digimon by a long shot, he certainly gave the beast they fought before a run for his money in the height department, and he loomed over them by a wide margin. The group considered themselves lucky he was on their side.

“Blanc,” He called, making the younger sister stand at attention. “You were the first on the scene, if I recall. How would you describe the Digimon you were sent to investigate?”

Blanc pondered it for just a moment. “He was... small. Pale white, with purple around the edges of the ears. Large eyes, small torso, red triangular formation on the forehead. He seemed pacifistic, averse to fighting, and scared, like a child. He cannot have been higher than Rookie level, and I would even go so far as to suggest In-Training.”

“The triangular pattern...” Her lord continued. “Do you know what it means?”

“I’m sorry, my master,” She confessed, lowering her head. “I do not.”

“That’s a slight disappointment,” Her master confessed. “In fairness, I had never seen it either. If any of us knew, matters may have been handled differently.”

He turned his back to them, pausing pointedly. “But I do know now. Shortly after you departed, _Ciel_ brought in her own report.”

Huckmon and Blanc gasped softly. Noir just clenched her fists.

  
“The three of you must depart for the human world immediately,” he commanded, turning to face them once more. “That child Digimon is much more important than we realized. Protect him and bring him back. This is a Mega-level priority; succeed at _all costs.”_

“Sir,” Huckmon interjected, directing their boss’s attention right onto him. “If I may, uh, be so bold... what about our friend? He fell through too, and after everything we put into bringing him back...”

The towering figure crossed his arms. “Do what you must. But I must insist that you keep focused on the larger-scale issue at hand. Go to the human world, find that Digimon, and let _nothing_ stop you from bringing him back.”

Huckmon seemed satisfied, just a bit, by the response. He, Blanc and Noir nodded and bowed before him. “Yes, master.”

* * *

Back in the human world, the tiny white holy beast known as Calumon was running for his life, again. He had no idea where he was, again. And he was running from Apemon, again.

He ducked into a new alleyway and took several deep breaths, taking stock of everything that happened in just the last few hours. A lot more than just Apemon came after him, but he made a lot of new friends who came to save him. Three of them did _not_ get sucked into the big hole that happened when the crazy light thing blew up, but the flickery unwhole one ended up coming through behind him. Sadly, Apemon ended up ahead of them, and the big screamy guy just teleported away, with no indication of where it could’ve gone. At least Apemon was preoccupied now, though; that fox lady started attacking him immediately, and it gave Calumon and his new buddy an opportunity to split up and get out of there. He wished they could’ve stayed together, but he kinda got it. The guy was barely together as it was, and maybe he wasn’t fit to keep him safe, or at least maybe that’s what he thought of himself. Calumon himself thought they’d have maybe been safer together, but he didn’t really have a chance to say that when they took their opening and ran.

He figured he’d be safe now, though. Ducking out of that alley and into a new one would surely throw _everyone_ else who was chasing him off his trail. For now, at least. Long enough to catch his breath and—

“Gotcha, you little twerp!”

Calumon screamed as Apemon leapt off the rooftop above, barely scrambling to his feet fast enough to avoid the club smashing into the ground.

_“Why!?”_ Calumon screamed, slinking along the nearest wall to try and escape the alley. “Why can’t you just leave me alone?”

Apemon just raised his club at him again. “Clearly fate wants me to take your power if it’s kept us together through all the weirdness today. And once I do, I’m gonna—”

**“Power Paw!”**

The yellow fox leaped out from nowhere, her paws alight with blue flame as she landed a drop-kick directly to Apemon’s face. The force was more than enough to bring the monkey man sprawling to the ground, and also enough to create a shock wave that carried Calumon right out of the alley.

“You’re not getting away that easily,” Came a voice from beside him. A figure unlike just about any Digimon he’d ever seen (well, maybe the two from before) stood tall above him, hair done up in a short ponytail and chest adorned with the shape of a broken heart. She had one hand on a strange blue device, the other on a small rectangular pouch mounted to her belt, and zero eyes on Calumon. It looked like every ounce of her attention was on the bigger Digimon fighting, but he was too shocked and scared to move very far from his landing point.

Renamon’s fiery fists swung at Apemon once more, but he tucked and rolled away before the blow could collide. In her moment of openness, he righted himself once more and started to swing his club right down on her back. **“Mega Bone Stick!”**

But Renamon _wasn’t_ open, partly because of Apemon’s loud declaration and partly due to her own acute sensory awareness. Her foot outstretched immediately, brushing against the tuft of fur on his chest as it collided squarely with his jaw. He dropped to his knees, dropping his club in his daze.

The vixen jumped back up over the rooftops, preparing another strike of leaves. As she ascended, she caught sight of a second target: the silhouette wreathed in lightning. She could’ve sworn it’d escaped, but it served both her Tamer’s best interests and her own that it hadn’t. Despite her amusement, she managed to hold to her stoicism.

**“Diamond Storm!”**

A hail of razor-sharp, shimmering leaves sliced through the air, spreading to cover the entire area just away from her Tamer. The silhouette strafed as much as it could; unseen by Renamon, most of the leaves just phased through it anyway. Apemon, however, was given no opening to run, the leaves battering his form and keeping him pinned as he nursed his aching jaw.

_‘You’re a quick one...’_ She absently noted towards the shadow as she descended once more, preparing another drop-kick. Apemon caught her approach and dove out of the way, leaving Renamon’s blow to collide with the ground, creating both another shock wave and a small fox-paw-shaped crater.

Calumon started to quietly and slowly slip away from all the carnage. With Renamon focused so solely on Apemon, and the shockwave helping him clear the battlefield completely, he figured there’d be no issue with just slipping away completely. It didn’t seem like anyone had remembered he was there.  
  
“I didn’t forget about you, squirt.”

Rika finally took direct notice of the combatant everyone else seemed to forget, and hovered over the smaller figure with a disappointed scowl and crossed arms. She glared daggers into Calumon’s very soul, making him too afraid to even move. Truly, this was a presence that could bend Digimon to her will; it was no wonder Renamon acted at her whim. She looked the tiny creature over in disapproval, trying idly to make sense of the passive and cryptic introduction her analyzer had provided for him, and ultimately finding him wanting.

“Useless. You can’t even fight, can you?”

Calumon was terrified beyond words and could only shake his head frantically, whimpering desperately as he took several steps back. Maybe if she really thought he was useless, she’d actually let him leave, right? It would certainly have been an improvement over being pursued constantly because people thought he was too useful.

With a resigned sigh and a shake of her head, Rika turned away from Calumon and put her focus back on her partner’s fight. “Figures... a triple emergence that Renamon can sense before it happens, and only one of the Digimon that shows up is fit to fight. I had high hopes for this battle... but now we have to end it.”

Her eyes latched onto Renamon with a steeled resolve, slipping her D-Power from its holster and an option card out of her deck. “Digi-Modify! Speed, Activate!” Her hand gave a small flourish as it swiped the card through her scanner, causing a bright light to erupt from her Digivice.

A sudden burst of energy surged through Renamon as the effects of the option card washed over her. Her form didn’t change outwardly at all, but as she eyed the lunging Apemon charging her with his club, her upgrade became apparent immediately. She vanished from in front of the aggressive Digimon before his blow could connect, instantaneously appearing behind and above him with her arms crossed. With another cry of **“Diamond Storm!”** her attack battered her foe once more, the range close enough and her aim narrow enough that it cut into him with a ferocity a Rookie shouldn’t have been able to muster. Apemon howled in agony as Renamon’s strikes connected, collapsing to his knees with a stinging soreness and a fine collection of fresh new cuts and scratches.

All the while, the silhouetted specter hovered unseen above the battlefield, tightening his grip on his staff. No DigiDestined’s partner should have had this capacity for brutality. He offered a glance in the younger Digimon’s direction, watching a bit of boldness come back over him as he started regaining the will to scoot away.

Renamon took no notice of either of them; as far as she was concerned, only one of these combatants was actually worth the time and effort she and her Tamer had expended. She walked calmly towards Apemon, casually kicking the prone monkey man to the ground and pressing her hindpaw to his chest. “That energy couldn’t have come from you, and neither of the others were able to fight. This was hardly worth it... but data is data. Begone.”

She barely lifted her arms to attack before a new cry rang out. **“Pyro Sphere!”**

With the Speed option still providing her energy, Renamon had no trouble leaping out of the way of an intense fireball, landing a few feet away and watching the blast scorch the ground near where she’d stood. In an instant, all eyes turned to face the source of the new attack.

The human was a young boy with spiky brown hair, a blue hoodie and gray shorts, and a pair of yellow goggles strapped to his head. Beside him was a strange red dragon-like creature with a feral look in its eyes, greeting the other human-Digimon pair with a vicious growl. Renamon recognized them: Takato and Guilmon.

Her Tamer recognized them too, and it elicited from her the first real emotional reaction she’d had this entire time she’d been fighting. Her D-Power and deck found their way back to her belt as her fists clenched unburdened, her brow furrowing in frustration. _“You_ again!?“

Takato met Rika’s scowl with a determined grin, whipping out his own D-Power as his partner got down on all fours. “You didn’t think I was gonna turn Guilmon down once he started growling, did you? He knew they were coming too!”

Rika groaned in annoyance and crossed her arms, her voice raised higher than Renamon had heard in some time as her partner prepared for yet another fight. “Alright, gogglehead, I’m going to level with you. Renamon is already capable of taking down Champions _twice_ your size, and she’s got to be pretty critically close to digivolving into one herself. There’s a power vacuum between us, one you aren’t going to overcome. I’m going to tell you exactly once: _back off!”_

The other Tamer’s determined expression didn’t falter for a moment. “If you’re gonna keep hunting innocent Digimon, I’m just gonna have to stop you! Get ‘em, Guilmon!”

His partner let out a roar at his command, charging towards Renamon and colliding with a powerful headbutt.

The unwhole silhouette observed from his vantage point, picking off a stray leaf that caught on his staff. After a moment of watching the new battle, he glanced towards the little creature that had been referred to as Calumon by the human girl’s device. The poor thing just couldn’t catch a break... until just now, it seemed, as he used the opening Guilmon provided to bolt out of there at last.

_Perhaps he has the right idea,_ he thought to himself, tapping his staff to the rooftop. _Be safe, Calumon..._ With that, he took the smaller Digimon’s cue, vanishing from the roof before anyone could remember he was even there.

* * *

On the other side of the district, the DigiDestined finally arrived via train at the Shinjuku stop, their otherwise exposed Digimon partners standing perfectly still and pretending to be plush dolls the whole while. The public was still shaky in their perception of Digimon, after all; those who believed the incident in Odaiba even happened almost certainly viewed them negatively as a whole. The facade had to be maintained whenever they were out in public.

“Alright! Shinjuku! Let’s go find those Digimon!” Davis pumped his fists in the air excitedly, entirely uncommitted to subtlety as his companions groaned softly in frustration.

DemiVeemon quickly concurred, hopping out of Davis’s bag as soon as the coast was clear. “Yeah! Let’s find those nasty invaders and rough ‘em up!”

“I can’t even _remember_ the last time I was this far into Tokyo!” Yolei noted excitedly, glancing around at the area immediately outside the station and soaking in the sights.   
  
“Focus up, Yolei,” Cody reminded her. “We’re on a mission. First, and most importantly: what’s our plan for finding these guys?”

T.K. tipped his hat and did a quick visual sweep of the area, then turned to address his fellow DigiDestined. “We split up into two groups. Three in the city, two in the park. We’ll have the park group be Kari and—”

“Oh, no you don’t!” Davis interjected, poking accusingly at T.K.’s chest. He knew exactly what was about to happen here. The two of them had (in his own mind) been fighting for Kari’s attention since day one, and T.K. was about to leverage this position he thrust upon them to put himself with her. Well, he wasn’t about to have it! “I know _exactly_ what you’re about to—”

T.K. quickly shushed him with a finger to his lips. “Kari and _Yolei._ The two of us will search the city with Cody.”

“W...what?” Davis stammered, the wind completely taken out of his sails.

With the conflict diffused, T.K. gestured out towards the city before them. “Remember what Izzy said. The calling card of these breaches is a fog bank, and on a sunny day like this, it’ll stick out like a sore thumb. Still, it’s a lot of ground to cover, but we can’t spread too thin and risk not being prepared to face what’s in that fog.”

The reasoning was too sound for Davis to really contend with. “Uh... yeah! Right! We’ll do that plan! Split up, DigiDestined!”

The group started to split off into their designated teams at Davis’s command... but before they did, T.K. stole a quick moment to whisper an aside to Kari. “Davis would’ve flipped his lid if I’d gone off with you to the park.”

Kari actually giggled at the thought, and as T.K. met up with Davis and Cody, the former shot him an indignant glare.

* * *

“Grrrrrrrrr... **Rock Breaker!”**

Guilmon rushed towards Renamon in a frenzy, claws alight with flaming energy, eyes intense and feral like a predator charging at cornered prey. Renamon was startled for just a fraction of a moment by the astonishing speed the reptile mustered towards her; her own Speed option had already been expended, so she’d need to rely on reflex alone to avoid this hit.  
  
She leaned back hard when Guilmon closed the gap and swung, narrowly avoiding a blow aimed right at her chest. Seizing this opening, she used her momentum to swing her leg upward, slamming Guilmon right in the snout before backflipping away to recover some ground. Once she had a comfortable range on him again, she leapt back up into the air and prepared her Diamond Storm.

The razor-sharp leaves connected with the dazed but furious creature, yet made no visible scratches on his hide like they had with Apemon. Unfortunately, Rika wasn’t unfamiliar with the sight; she and Takato had come to blows before, and Guilmon had been similarly unharmed and unfazed by this attack.

On the other hand, Rika was prepared this time. She went for her D-Power and her deck once more, making the same dramatic swiping gesture as she prepared to boost her partner. “Digi-Modify! Power, Activate!”

Renamon’s form shuddered as the card’s energy flowed through her, this time bolstering her offensive strength as her fists lit up with burning blue power. Without a moment’s hesitation, she kicked off the building behind her to propel her forward, pouncing with everything she had at Guilmon.

The crimson dragon had little strategic sense in his mind; he was a simple beast of simple urges, and right now his strongest urge was to _fight._ Upon seeing Renamon attack, he could only answer in kind, rearing up as flames spilled from his mouth. **“Pyro Sphere!”**

Renamon responded quickly as a flaming ball of destruction hurtled straight for her, letting out another cry of **“Power Paw!”** and throttling her blazing fist right into it. The blast dispersed even quicker than it had formed, and now nothing stood in her way. She charged for Guilmon, fist still outstretched...

And Guilmon chomped right down on it.

“Rrrah... what are you— let _go!”_ Renamon flustered as, for the first time in this entire battle, she lost control of the situation. She tugged at the paw trapped in the other Digimon’s mouth, pushed her foot against his snout to try and add force to her pulls, but Guilmon’s jaws were clamped down too strongly. She wasn’t about to escape his grip, not under her own power.

Rika sighed in annoyance as she watched the scene unfold, whipping out another card from her deck. A Digimon card, this time... and one whose effect she’d used on Renamon before. It would certainly work to wipe the vacant look off of Guilmon’s stupid face. She raised up her D-Power once more, swiping the card into it to grant Renamon another boon. “Digi-Modify! Tankmon Cannon, Activate!”

Renamon’s free arm briefly digitized as it morphed its shape, quickly shifting into a cannon barrel. This would almost certainly daze Guilmon enough to release her, though past experience trying to get through his hide suggested it wouldn’t hurt that much. It was all she really needed, though, since her priority was freeing her hand. She pointed it right at her opponent’s face, charging up a point-blank shot that was sure to hit its mark...  
  
And then she picked up the sound of heavy feet clamoring towards her, and with herself trapped and Guilmon preoccupied, neither could dodge away from the form that tackled them to the ground.

Rika gasped in alarm, then grunted in annoyance as her grip on her Digivice tightened. “Dammit, we forgot about Apemon!”

Guilmon recovered quickly with a raging growl, putting distance between himself and Apemon as he summoned another ball of fire from his mouth. **“Pyro Sphere!”**

Apemon regained his footing as well, and brandished his club with a shout of **“Mega Bone Stick!”** Guilmon was too far away to bash with it... but what he _could_ do was put that attack energy into deflecting the attack, swinging his weapon like a baseball bat and sending the fiery blast up into the air. It exploded harmlessly like a flare, far enough away from any of the combatants that no one was injured... but also far enough away that it was well out of the fog.

Takato gulped nervously as he watched the light show from below. “I really hope no one saw that...”

* * *

“Did you _see that!?”_

Davis, Cody and T.K. watched in awe as an explosion cracked through the sky, their D-3’s quickly confirming what it came from. People throughout the crowded district stood and stared at the massive flare, leaving T.K. to have to shove through them as he charged ahead towards the source.

Davis eventually shook off his stupor and realized he’d been deserted, grabbing Cody’s arm and following his teammate. “Hey, wait for us, T.J.!”

T.K. bristled a bit; he hated when Davis deliberately botched his name. But he had enough of a sense of urgency to largely ignore it and go for his cell, immediately calling Kari.

The phone picked up immediately. “You saw it too?”

“Yeah, we’re twenty minutes out. How—” He grunted, trying to squeeze through a couple of gawking adults. “How quickly can you get there?”

“Yolei and I can be there in five. Gatomon already went ahead to scope it out.”

“Meet you there!” T.K. quickly hung up the phone and continued his push forward... and lamented that he didn’t say something more. Maybe a _be safe,_ maybe a _call if you need me..._

“You’re slowing down, T.M.!” Davis remarked as he and Cody blasted past T.K. on his left. Not wanting to be left behind by the search party he formed, he quickly picked up his own pace...

And bumped into another kid about his age, wearing a blue bandanna with yellow stripes. “Hey, watch where you’re going!”

“Sorry!” T.K. offered a dismissive wave, but couldn’t so much as look back. The world needed saving.

* * *

At her master’s behest, Sistermon Blanc arrived on the scene in search of the small white Digimon she’d previously failed to protect. She stood atop a roof that was now out of the Tamers’ notice, thanks to their preoccupation with fighting amongst themselves. She scoped out the area and quickly caught sight of Apemon in the scuffle below, but no sign of her partially corporeal friend, or her charge. Likely they managed to whisk themselves away in the midst of all the chaos,and good on them for it. Alas, the small one was her responsibility, now more than ever, and she couldn’t waste time being a spectator.

She turned to leave... then stopped, a sudden and familiar chill washing over her as something else emerged. “Oh... oh, _no...”_

* * *

Renamon finally got up after taking the brunt of Apemon’s tackle, pointing her Tankmon Cannon right at the small of his back and firing a round into it. The other Digimon buckled in pain, attempting to throw his club behind him to counterattack, but she swatted it away with the tank arm just before her boon faded and the metal returned to flesh. She crossed her arms in front of her, preparing another Diamond Storm hail...

When a swirling gust surrounded the area, centered around Takato and Rika,the latter of whom clutched her arms to her chest and shivered. “What is this...?”

Takato opened his mouth to follow up, but a roaring howl silenced him. Everyone’s attention immediately turned to the direction the sound had come from, where the fog was starting to blow away, just as a hulking brown behemoth made himself apparent, his massive mouth agape in a wicked grin.

Apemon grunted as he got off the ground, scrambling to retrieve his club. “This guy _again?”_

‘This guy’ responded with a thunderous roar as his stomach tore open, displaying a host of live cannons that fired off in a scatter spread in front of him. Rena and Guilmon quickly grabbed at their respective Tamers and fled, escaping the firing range as Apemon strafed through the hail of cannon fire.

Once she was certain they were safe, Renamon set Rika down and looked her over for any sign of injury... a professional courtesy, of course. There was no personal affection in their dynamic. She nodded in satisfaction and turned to face the new monster, who was now suddenly _right behind her._

“H-how!?”

**“CABLE CRUSHER!”** the beast hollered, his giant arm swinging down upon the stunned Renamon. Her reflexes didn’t kick in in time; the blow knocked her square in the back, sending her straight into the ground and bouncing away a good couple of feet.

“Renamon!” Rika cried out in alarm and ran towards her trounced partner, but couldn’t fully bridge the gap before the monster was on her once more, having evidently grown bored of his incapacitated quarry and decided to move onto something that was still moving. Unfortunately for Rika, she was a still-moving thing that was powerless on her own to fight back against this titan. Her cards didn’t work on herself. This was the first time she’d felt actual, palpable life-or-death stakes, and she was terrified for her—

**“Lightning Paw!”**

Gatomon burst onto the scene with an empowered slug to the monster’s face, sending him slamming against the nearest wall as she panted in exertion. Her power wasn’t up to par with her holy ring missing from her tail, and summoning the strength to go toe-to-toe with another Champion when she herself had dipped to Rookie-level power was a hell of a task.

Renamon grunted softly as Rika tried to help her up, having used the distraction to bridge the gap to her felled partner, and set a hand on her shoulder to stand herself up. A quick look-over confirmed that none of her present injuries were major. “I blocked most of it... nnh... not all of it.”

Rika gave Renamon a warm look of concern, then collected herself and went stoic as ever once more, offering a small scoff. “If you can still fight, then get back into the fight. There’s more data to collect now.”

Renamon glanced at the newcomer who’d just cold-clocked the larger Digimon, paused for the briefest moment, then shot Rika a nod and lunged.

“Wha—” Gatomon caught the movement in the corner of her eye just in time to react, reaching out a gloved paw to catch the vixen’s fist. Renamon looked down at the smaller creature with faint surprise at her competent defiance, while Gatomon’s expression was one of utter bafflement. “What’s your damage? You’re attacking your backup!?”

“You’re not backup.” Renamon swiped her other arm at Gatomon’s midsection,prompting the cat to leap back to dodge. With both arms now unoccupied, her arms crossed once more, summoning the shimmering leaves to prepare to launch them. “We work alone. Anything else is a distraction and an obstacle. **Diamond Storm!”**

Gatomon mewled in alarm as the shards battered the ground at her feet, leaping quickly out of the past of Renamon’s blast with a nimble backflip. She wasn’t expecting the other DigiDestined to be hostile, and rather than going in to help out with the massive influx of nasty Digimon coming into the real world, she now found her main concern shifting to just staying alive long enough for Kari and Yolei to come in and back her up.

The two stared each other down for just a slash of a second, then with countered cries of **“Lightning Paw”** and **“Power Paw,”** Gatomon and Renamon ran straight at each other, fists alight each with the energy of their signature moves. Their charged fists collided in a bright flash and repelled the combatants several feet back, but now both were jazzed up enough that they could think of nothing but charging and fighting again.

“Another one who can actually fight,” Rika mused to herself. “About time.” With Guilmon and Apemon off doing their own little fight, she found herself with the luxury of focusing up on this battle in front of her. As Renamon traded blows with the surprisingly strong feline, she lifted her D-Power towards the new foe and scanned her for information.

* * *

**Digimon Analyzer:**

****

**Name: Gatomon**

**Level: Champion**

**Attribute: Vaccine**

**Although Gatomon's body is small, the appearance of this Holy Beast Digimon does not match the true strength it possesses. The claws it wears are copied from SaberLeomon's data, which allows it to utilize a Lightning Paw attack.**

* * *

“Champion, huh?” Rika mused, watching the exchange of lightning-fast blows as the kitty brawled it out with Renamon. “Guess they have them in all sizes. Still... it’s data for Renamon. Hopefully more of it than it looks.”

Gatomon pounced as Renamon punched at the ground beneath her, landing on her elbow and flicking at her nose with her tail before landing a kick that forced her to recoil. She recovered gracefully on the ground, cattily pawing in her direction. “For a Rookie, you put up a heck of a fight!”

Renamon simply stood before her, idly rubbing at her nose. “I can’t say likewise. I’ve vanquished Champions hundreds of times more powerful than you. Are you certain _you’re_ not a Rookie?”

Gatomon bristled and hissed menacingly at the offending fox, claws outstretched and ready to gore her as she lunged once more. The lost ring was already a sore spot, and now Renamon had the gall to rub in the power it cost her. And that was going to cost Renamon dearly.

“Gatomon, stop!” The feline halted in her tracks, soothed by the only force that could have possibly stopped her in that moment: Kari’s voice.Her partner had finally arrived with Yolei in tow, along with her own partner, who’d digivolved on the way and prepared to enter the fight as Hawkmon.

“Kari! This DigiDestined, she’s not—”

“He’s getting away!” Yolei exclaimed, pointing behind the group and capturing even Rika and Renamon’s attention.Sure enough, the brown behemoth Gatomon had stunned was dislodging himself from the wall he’d been knocked into, grunting dismissively and lumbering away from the fight. Either he knew that he’d been had and wanted to escape... or something else was approaching that caught his attention.

Sure enough, two more Digimon emerged from the mist in front of the recovered beast, ready to try and force him back down. The first curled up into a ball and launched himself into the monster’s gut; the second touched down from above with a forceful skull-bash. The larger creature staggered back in pain, slumping back against that same wall to show Cody and Davis, accompanying their partners Armadillomon and Veemon. T.K. and Patamon came in just behind, the latter flying into formation above his fellow Digimon.

“Great shot, Armadillomon!” Cody cried out, both he and Davis pumping their fists in the air. The partners looked back for just a second, Veemon flashing Davis a cocky thumbs-up before their attention fixed back on the lumbering beast before them.

Rika lost herself in frustration yet again, clapping her hands against her head and digging her fingers into her hair. “What the hell is _happening right now?!”_

Takato, in contrast, was a lot more excited by what he was seeing, pointing eagerly at the five new kids that just arrived once it looked like his partner’s foe was down. “Guilmon, look, more Tamers!”

Guilmon let out a soft, inquisitive grunt at Takato’s call, phasing out of fight mode and looking toward the direction of his pointing. He gazed curiously at the other kids, and the group of Digimon surrounding them, tilting his head a bit... and taking a club to the side, courtesy of a rebounded Apemon. He went flying from the blow, sailing over the Digimon and collapsing in a heap right on top of Yolei and Kari.

“This is...” Kari groaned as she strained to push the dazed reptile off of her. “This is the _weirdest_ day I’ve had as a DigiDestined, and it’s only just started.”

Guilmon eventually got the message and bounded off the two girls, eyes feral once again as the blow reminded him of his prey. His claws lit up with flaming power once more, and with a shout of **“Rock Wrecker!”** he sent one, then the other straight into Apemon’s face.

Luckily, Guilmon didn’t have to deal with Apemon alone anymore. Without a moment’s hesitation,Hawkmon charged into the fray and perched onto Apemon’s head just as he was righting himself, latching on with his talons and pecking down at his forehead.

“Wha- how- where did- _ow,_ stop that!” Apemon flailed at the space above his head,trying and failing in his blind thrashing to actually hit Hawkmon, much less dislodge him. The bird _did_ retreat, however, as Patamon flew in to assist as well, rearing back as his entire frame bloated up like a balloon.

**“Boom Bubble-POP!”**

The blast collided with the beast-man’s gut and sent him flying, causing yet another body-to-wall collision as Patamon shrank back in concern. “Uh...remember what we were saying before about property damage?”

The other allied Digimon seemed a bit less concerned, likely due to not having witnessed the Odaiba event. Armadillomon in particular was freely bouncing his curled-up form between buildings around the other massive creature, pummeling him for a bevy of angles and thwarting his attempts to lash out and strike at him. The opening provided by his disorientation allowed Veemon to leap up at him, his whirlwinding fists clocking the furry monster in the face and sending him staggering back, right into a blow to the spine from Armadillomon that brought him to his knees.

“We got him!” Davis shouted excitedly. “Top-tier teamwork, guys!”

Cody, however, recognized that the beast was down but not out. What he _didn’t_ recognize was the beast himself, likely because all this was still such a new experience for him. He whipped out his trusty D-3 and held it up to the monster, scanning him for information as Rika had before. “Alright, just what are you?”

* * *

**Digimon Analyzer:**

**Name: wenD1Gom0n**

**Level: Ch@mp10n**

**Attribute: v1Ru$**

**@@@@@@djm_factorymark_co_jp**

* * *

“Uh, guys?” Cody called. “The scan’s glitchy! There’s not much here and it’s barely readable!” He showed his display to Davis, who promptly tried the same scan and got the same result. Wendigomon... whatever this thing was, he wasn’t friendly to the analyzer.

He also wasn’t keen to stay down for long. As Wendigomon rose up from the beatdown the smaller Digimon had thrown at him, he lifted his foot above Veemon in an effort to trample him. The nimble Rookie zipped out from underneath before he could stomp down, deftly avoiding both the blow and the resulting shockwave.

“Great...” T.K. smacked the side of his own Digivice, which read the same corrupted data as the others. “We can’t get a feel for what this guy does. We’re fighting blind!”

Patamon smiled at T.K. as he briefly circled his head. “That just means we need to be ready for anything!” The cheery flyer quickly brought his attention back to the fights in front of him, slipping away from Apemon for just a moment to lend a hand to Veemon and Armadillomon.

Hawkmon broke off from Guilmon’s fight as well, fairly satisfied that the big red dragon probably had it covered by now, and flew in to assist Gatomon against the much less friendly Tamer Digimon. They were also fairly evenly matched, but Gatomon was tiring faster. He tried the beak strike trick against Renamon as well, but the fox was much craftier and kept herself guarded from his attempts to clamp down on her.

“What is _wrong_ with you!?” Kari screamed at Rika, pointing at their feuding partners. “This isn’t how DigiDestined are supposed to treat each other!”

Rika had since recomposed herself, and had little to offer Kari but sheer, palpable condescension. “First of all, DigiDestined are old news. We’re Tamers now. Second, there’s _no way_ you’re one of the legendary warriors that saved the world from a Mega-level threat.” She also pointed to the fight, specifically to the struggling Gatomon. “Not if your weakling Champion can’t stand up to a Rookie.”

“That doesn’t mean anything!” Kari retorted, clutching at her Digivice and holding it out to Rika. “We lost our crests and tags to stop that threat, but we still have these!”

Rika shook her head and rolled her eyes. “None of those words mean anything to me. You want to show me your legendary power? Digivolve your partner to Ultimate, _right now.”_

Kari glared daggers at Rika, her D-3 still outstretched, though her arm started to tremble. The power of the crests... it still resided in the DigiDestined’s hearts despite the physical objects being destroyed in the battle with Apocalymon, and the resonance of that power allowed them to use the Digi-Eggs, but not enough of it was left to digivolve Gatomon further.

“...I can’t,” Kari relented, dropping her arm at last. “Not after that incident. The power’s gone.”

Rika just scoffed and palmed her own D-Power, lips twisting into a snide smirk. “If you ever had it to begin with. You just look like a child playing around with a lofty title you don’t know anything about. You’re a poser, a wannabe. Pathetic!”

The biting words distracted Gatomon from the fight long enough to turn to Rika. “You take all of that back! I’ll make you eat those words!” It was all she could muster before Renamon was on her again, having to use both paws to catch her punch this time.

Rika glowered at the defiant Digimon and pointed her finger again, this time at Kari and Yolei. “The power of an Ultimate is gone? Fine, whatever. But you won’t convince me you’re true DigiDestined unless I see your weakling Digimon give Renamon an actual fight.”

“Oh, I’ll _show_ you a fight!” Yolei challenged, whipping out her own Digivice and holding it out to Hawkmon. Immediately realizing what Yolei was doing, Kari did the same, offering one last sour look to the so-called Tamer before putting her focus on Gatomon. Both of them shouted out in unison, and their partners glowed with a powerful light and started to transform.

**“Digi-Armor, Energize!”**

* * *

**_(Armor-Digivolution)_ **

**“Hawkmon, Armor Digivolve to... Shurimon, the Shinobi of Sincerity!”**

**“Gatomon, Armor Digivolve to... Nefertimon, the Angel of Light!”**

* * *

**Digimon Analyzer:**

  


**Name: Shurimon**

**Level: Armor**

**Attribute: Data**

**Shurimon wields the "Kusanagi" shuriken on his back and the "Momiji Oroshi" shuriken on the tips of his limbs, which extend like springs. He blends in with nature and strikes his enemy's blind spots, unseen from his camouflage and with speed few can match.**

  
  


**Name: Nefertimon**

**Level: Armor**

**Attribute: Vaccine**

**This Holy Beast Digimon is rumored to be one of the few Angel Digimon incapable of being corrupted and falling from grace. She draws upon her inherent pure energy when utilizing her Rosetta Stone attack, and is capable of a unison attack with Pegasusmon known as “Golden Noose”.**

* * *

Rika stared bewildered at the new shapes her opponents took, needing a solid few seconds to collect herself again. Once she did, she was able to process the data on her analyzer and soak it up in context. “Armor digivolution... alright, DigiDestined, you’ve got some tricks after all.”

Shurimon took a fighting stance at Remanon, though his glowing yellow eyes fixed first on Rika. “This power was not meant to be used like this. You’re limiting our options.”

“Too bad for you,” Renamon chided. “We still have options to spare.” She sized up the two significantly larger opponents, taking stock of the plays available to her. Shurimon was a bit more her size, though a fair deal taller... but Nefertimon was large enough to ride. The alley left her mobility a lot more limited than everyone else’s, wings or no. She’d be the first target.

The moment she started making a move, the unshifting visage of Nefertimon trained on her as her headdress lit up. **“Beam of Isis!”** Several rays of light blasted out from her forehead, forcing Renamon to reel back as she ducked and weaved through the hail of lasers.

**“Double Stars!”** Shurimon read Renamon’s opening and hurled the shuriken in his hands right at her back. It should have been an easy hit, with Nefertimon keeping her pinned.

However, Renamon’s senses were too sharp to keep her open for more than a moment. She whipped around, clasped her paws together, and focused on the furthest of the approaching shuriken, then cried out **“Kohenkyo!”** She vanished in a flurry of leaves, swapping positions with the shuriken and closing the gap between herself and Shurimon, fist lit up with blue fire.

“How-!?”

**“Power Paw!”**

Shurimon quickly retracted his weapons and held one up to his face as Renamon’s paw came down on his head, blocking the blow without too much issue. Renamon was forceful and crafty, he noted, but she was also still a Rookie, though an incredibly powerful one. Armor as a level was right around Champion level, certainly the closest Hawkmon was capable of achieving right now.

Renamon had vanquished countless Champions in her time, of course... but two at once was a struggle, especially when they were coordinated and cooperating.

Twin cries rang out from both sides of her, first of **“Rosetta Stone!”** and then of **“Konoha Kakure!”** Shurimon immediately vanished from in front of Renamon, leaving a cutting whirlwind of sharp leaves that gave her a brief taste of her own medicine. With him gone, Nefertimon was free to launch a gigantic stone slab down at Renamon, slamming her in the back and drawing from her the first real shout of pain she’d uttered in Rika’s presence since they started this venture. The ninja perched himself atop the sphinx, shuriken at the ready and preparing to pin her to the ground.

“Digi-Modify! Power, Activate!”

Kari watched as Rika swiped a card from her deck through her Digivice, a brilliant light shining from it and faintly engulfing Renamon. “What... what did you just do?”

**“Double Stars!”** Shurimon extended his vine-like arms and launched his blades right at the felled vixen... who suddenly snapped back onto her feet with glowing red eyes, caught both in a flash, and immediately hurled them right back with such force that it sent him reeling off of Nefertimon’s back.

Without even waiting for the effect to fade, Rika procured a second card and swiped it as well. “Digi-Modify! Speed, Activate!” Her partner got the second rush of energy washing over the first, her strength and speed both enhanced beyond their limits. When the hail of light came for her this time, her movements were sharper and quicker to the point where the naked eye struggled to track, and she even made headway towards Nefertimon even as she strafed through the lasers.

Realizing how close Renamon was getting, Nefertimon switched tactics, dulling the light of her headdress and diverting it to the gemstones on her bracers. **“Queen’s Paw!”** At her command, precious jewels fired out from her bracers, threatening to riddle Renamon with something a lot more solid.

**“Diamond Storm!”** Renamon immediately countered with her own spread-shot attack, the opposing projectiles colliding in the air and deflecting each other as she and Nefertimon engaged in a battle of endurance. Dust kicked up around them, and blotted out the area, giving the recovered Shurimon the cover he needed to try and come in from behind...

* * *

Noir and Huckmon caught up to Blanc and overlooked the intensifying battle below, with Tamers and DigiDestined fighting against each other in a way Blanc had been made to believe they shouldn’t. She grew increasingly concerned as the struggle raged on, though her companions were more bemused than anything.

She held her grip on her lance, knuckles whitening from the strain. “We should intervene.”

“Ah, we’ve done enough of that for one day,” Noir retorted, clapping her sister on the back. “Much as I love a good fight, I’m happy to just sit back and watch one I don’t have to be a part of!”

“I hate saying it’s not our problem,” Huckmon added, “but we’ve never meddled with DigiDestined affairs before. It’s out of our jurisdiction. Besides, we need to be looking out for—”

“Another Digital Field!” Blanc pointed to a spot in the distance, in the direction Wendigomon was being driven back towards. Several blocks away, another plume of fog was wafting out between the buildings, signaling yet another bio-emergence.

“As if today hasn’t been complicated enough...” Noir rolled her eyes and strolled over to the edge of the roof, guns materializing in her hand. “I’ll scope it out. You NEED to tell me how that fight ends. Onward, Anthony!” With a wink and a wave to her sister, she leapt off the roof to the one across, making her way towards the second incident site and leaving Huckmon and Blanc to monitor the first.

* * *

“Stand... _still!”_ Apemon swung wildly in the air at the deftly dodging Patamon,who’d returned to the fray and started tauntingly hovering around his head. He tried hurling his club like a boomerang, but the tiny creature nudged gently to the side to avoid it with little issue. At least he’d have another shot at it when the club returned to him; maybe the return would hit

**“Pyro Sphere!”** Guilmon immediately seized the opening and launched a flaming sphere directly into Apemon’s stomach, sending him flying into a wall once again. He bounced off and fell into a dumpster, his club sailing down behind him and bonking him on the head to knock him out cold for a while.

“Ha! Nice shot!” T.K. remarked, his partner perching on top of his head as he always liked to do. They were safe from one of the threats, for the moment.

“Thanks! And thanks for the opening!” Takato chuckled and rubbed the back of his neck, his partner calming down now that Apemon was out. The dragon Digimon approached T.K. extremely closely, looking up and sniffing curiously at Patamon. “But, if I can ask... who are you guys?”

T.K. smiled down at Guilmon and gave him a playful pat on the head, Patamon taking off and leading the inquisitive reptile around. “We’re DigiDestined! With your partner there, I figured you were too.”

“Is that the word for it?” Takato inquired as T.K. started walking toward the dumpster. “I’ve just been calling myself a Tamer. Blame Rika over there for that. Also, um... what are you doing?”

T.K. reached back into the bag on his back, pulling out and opening up a laptop. “Sending this guy back to the Digital World.”

“What? You can _do that?”_ Takato watched incredulously as T.K. walked towards the unconscious Apemon armed with nothing but a computer. “You can send them home? Just, like... with a laptop?”

“Yep,” T.K. replied, too engrossed in setting up the gate to look up at his new friend. “Courtesy of my pal Izzy.”

He stopped short of the last few keystrokes when Wendigomon let out a howling roar, and turned to see him grab the bouncing Armadillomon out of the air and hurl him right into Veemon. The two crumbled over in a heap, not out of the picture but certainly dazed. With them downed, the beast focused on the next closest standing targets: T.K. and Takato. He outstretched his arm, and with a barely coherent scream of **“Cable Crusher!”** he launched his fist forward, arm extending like a rubber band to strike at the helpless humans.

“Get down!” Takato shouted, and promptly tackled T.K. to the ground, keeping the sensitive electronic equipment shielded between them. The arm kept sailing forward, instead striking first Guilmon, then Patamon, embedding them together into a wall with his fist. The two humans could barely shout their concern before Wendigomon’s chest tore open again, all six cannons trained on the prone Digimon.

**“Koko Crush-** **_aaugh!”_ **

The battle cry was cut short as a heavenly body tackled Wendigomon to the ground, stunning him enough to retract his arm and free Guilmon and Patamon. Nefertimon kept him pinned to the ground, having broken off from the struggle with Renamon to help out in the losing fight. “I won’t let you hurt them.”

Wendigomon responded by swiping at Nefertimon with his arm, the feline angel simply flying off to avoid the blow as he used the momentum of the swing to stand once more. He roared at her, ready to strike at her like all the rest... then suddenly went quiet. Turned around, staring past all the fighters who all paused to observe. Something else was near... something familiar to him.

He took a step forward, then with a wisp of air disappeared without a trace.

“He vanished...” Cody mused, transfixed by the empty space where Wendigomon once was as Davis helped their partners up off the ground. After a moment to collect himself, he rushed over to T.K. and Takato, where they were getting their own support from Guilmon. “Are you guys alright?”

Takato grunted softly as he leaned on Guilmon to right himself, lending a hand to T.K. to get him standing as well. “Yeah, I’m good. I think we’re both good.”

T.K. offered no such condolences. He handed the miraculously intact laptop to Cody, motioned for Patamon to follow him, and started walking in the direction Wendigomon looked like he was heading. “I’m following that thing. Take care of Apemon!”

Kari turned around as T.K. sprinted off out of the alley, her partner reverting to her smaller state and leaping onto her shoulder, then into her bag. “I’m gonna back him up. You guys clean up here!”

“Wait, maybe I could also come... help... backup... um.” Davis stammered as Kari ran off without a word to him, groaning in annoyance now that his (perceived) love rival stole the girl. “Great. Just... _great.”_

“Yeah, uh, hold that thought?” Veemon pointed at the dumpster, where an extremely upset Apemon suddenly leapt out, covered head to toe in garbage and hatred. “Yellow guy’s gettin’ back up.”

“They’re making us really work for it today, huh?” Armadillomon mused, readying himself to fight yet again as the livid monkey charged them.

Shurimon looked over at the other fight re-brewing and started over to support his friends, but a forceful paw to the chest halted his advance. Renamon kicked out at him and held him in place, eyes still as cold and determined as ever. “We’re not done.”

The shinobi regarded this defiant vixen for a moment, then backed up to give them some distance, Guilmon flanking her on the other side as he re-engaged his fighting mode. The two circled Renamon as each waited for any of the others to make the first move... then Takato whipped some cards out of the deck on his belt, Rika wordlessly mirroring the action.

Yolei just looked around at the continuing battle in total befuddlement, walking up to Takato since he seemed to be the nicer one. “Okay. Respectfully... what are you doing with those cards?”

Takato simply shot her a knowing smirk and dropped his goggles over his eyes. “I’m doing the best I can. Guilmon! Digi-Modify!” With that, he held up his D-Power, stuck the card in the reader, and swiped.

* * *

“Okay, Noir might have had the right idea,” Huckmon confessed, claws digging eagerly at the edge of the rooftop. “This is getting really fun to watch.”

Blanc let out a defeated sigh and just continued observing the increasingly inane happenings below. Idly, she found her gaze drifting towards the second field, wondering if Noir would really be alright on her own over there.

* * *

Kari and T.K. headed in the direction they saw Wendigomon try to escape to, hoping to find the teleporting titan, but what they found instead was potentially worse. An entire block’s worth of construction was shrouded in fog, signalling a second breach from the Digital World, all while the first hadn’t finished getting sorted out yet.

“It’s even worse than we thought,” Kari cautioned, keeping her grip tight around her Digivice.

T.K. sighed in resignation and gave his partner on his head a comforting pat. “There’s not much else we can do but push on. This one has to be dealt with too.”

The pair pushed through the fog and into the construction zone, trying to make out the shape of their quarry... and quickly they found him, locked in combat in the most open section of the area. The other combatant who must have just arrived was going toe-to-toe with Wendigomon... and T.K. and Kari both recognized the figure.

“Wait, didn’t we _just_ deal with this guy?” Patamon chimed, his human companions holding out their D-3’s to scan and verify the other Digimon.

* * *

**Digimon Analyzer:**

****

**Name: Gorillamon**

**Level: Champion**

**Attribute: Data**

**Gorillamon is a powerful Beast Digimon with an Energy Cannon on his right hand. He uses his overwhelming strength to crush anything in his way, no matter how sturdy. However, he surprises the opponent with a light-footed grace his physique wouldn’t imply.**

* * *

The new combatant snarled and lunged right for Wendigomon, slamming him in the gut with his cannon and letting out a point-blank energy blast that sent him through a half-built wall, doing more to incapacitate the beast than anyone before him. The other monster grunted in pain and surprise, struggling to find his footing once more in the rubble of the unfinished structure.

With that squared away, Gorillamon turned his ire towards the assembled DigiDestined, recognizing them without a shred of gratitude. T.K. and Kari met him with determination in kind, gripping their D-3’s and preparing to armor-digivolve their partners yet again.

Before they could utter the cry, however, another shout came from above as a shadow descended upon them, preparing to fire on Gorillamon from behind. **“Bunny Blast!”**

  
  


Noir giggled as she watched from the scaffolding above, hopping eagerly in place as she watched the battle unfold. “Oh, this day just went from boring to _great!”_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> To Be Continued...
> 
> Three enemy Champions now bear down on the united groups of DigiDestined. How will the remaining forces handle their opponents? What exactly is Huckmon and the Sistermons' master up to, and what are his plans for Calumon? All this and more, still to come...
> 
> \-----
> 
> Sneak Peek: Next Time on Digimon United:
> 
> Gorillamon let out an angered howl and charged forward, arm-cannon at the ready. “This ends now!”
> 
> Veemon glanced over at his new companion, managing a wry smirk as he put up his fists. “I think ya made him mad, buddy...”
> 
> …
> 
> Henry staggered back in shock at the sight of the new combatant. “What the hell? Where did that come from!?”
> 
> The unfazed Guilmon lunged forward, sword-mod in hand. “Kurogane Maru!”
> 
> …
> 
> Rika snarled as her quarry vanished. “Where did it go? Where did you send it?!”
> 
> Cody sternly regarded the crueler Tamer as he shut the laptop. “Somewhere you can’t get to him.”
> 
> …
> 
> “I have so many questions,” Davis flustered, pointing at the three new kids. “Number one: what’s a Tamer?”
> 
> \-----
> 
> And here's the next chapter! Terribly sorry for the long hiatus! Hopefully, the wait between this chapter and the next won’t be as long. Enjoy!


End file.
